


Causalities Of Accidental Dating

by SkySamuelle



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 06:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkySamuelle/pseuds/SkySamuelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from Fool Me Once. A series of accidental dates between Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore stir feelings of a deeper nature than anyone would have guessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Emmy/martinigirl15, inspired by impishdragon
> 
> Timeline: Post Season 1 episode 'Fool Me Once'
> 
> The fic title is a play of words between 'casualities' and 'causes'.  
> Cover Art from the talented reader Salix, while the banner is my work.

** **

 

**I**

Across the room, Caroline leans toward Matt, flirty smile in place, fingers idly pulling at his collar. Bonnie wonders why a friend would insist that much that she get out of her house, only to ditch her afterwards.

That's Caroline Forbes –the witch sighs. She doesn't _mean_ to be self-centered, she just…is. It's not in her nature to focus on anyone else's needs for more than five minutes.

_She probably thinks her job with me is done. I'm all cheered up._

And just to improve her already sour mood …

"You know"- a familiar and much-disliked voice brushes against her earlobe- "Age is not really about how old you actually are."

Shrinking back, Bonnie warily eyes the vampire suddenly seated beside her, an arrogant smirk on his perfect lips, ice-colored eyes fixed on her.

She nods with a blatantly insincere grin "I am sure it's not about how old you really _feel_ either, because then you wouldn't be any older than twelve."

He chuckles, probably surprised that she's playing along instead of walking away. She is a bit surprised, as well. To say she hates him would probably be an exaggeration, yet…

"And you, little witch, would be positively ancient. "

Annoyed that Damon made the effort to come to her just to be snarky with her, Bonnie rolls her eyes upward and looks away, determined to ignore him.

He doesn't leave.

"An apple martini for the lady." He orders instead, compelling the barman so no unnecessary questions will arise.

Bonnie' s expression as she turns toward her unwanted companion is nearly outraged.

"What?" – he shrugs like the very picture of affected innocence, - You _truly_ look like you need one."

And then he invades her personal space some more, so their shoulders are touching. Yes, this Salvatore definitely has the emotional maturity of a spoiled child.

_And, let's not forget, the destructive capacity of a hurricane._

"What game are you playing tonight, Damon? "

"No games, just a drink "– he sing-songs, half serious and half mocking, gaze softening in amusement- "Doesn't misery love company? "

"Not yours," Bonnie snipes back, because it's really, really easy (and oddly liberating) to be mean to him, whereas she has the opposite tendency with most people.

 _Unlike Stefan, Damon is not a person._ Her subconscious nastily adds.

Yet, Bonnie accepts the drink.

Or rather, she downs it before she can think better of it, throwing a filthy look over her shoulder at a certain preening vampire.

"Oooh, you have a mean streak. I like it." His crooked smile gleams under the artificial purple lighting, and his voice is strangely warm.

Bonnie doesn't like how easy it might be, to let his sex appeal and charming mannerisms distract her from what he truly is: a cruel, selfish creature, even putting vampirism aside. It's unfair that someone so superficially alluring is also so vicious and just…plain evil on the inside.

Villains like Damon haven't any friends to hang out with, so it's probably not too surprising that they are forced to consort with their enemies when they feel chatty. Perhaps it's sort of sad, but it's also just another way they _use_ people like her.

"Unlike you, not everyone enjoy being back-handed, insincere and unnecessarily cruel. I'm not playing with you, I _genuinely_ don't want you around."

The words tumble out of her mouth in a smooth rush, defensive but more self-assured than she would have expected. It's the martini spurring her on, she knows. It has run straight to her brain.

There's a beat of silence as their eyes meet and don't let go. His expression is still, but not hostile, although she can see darkness flashing briefly behind his gaze.

Then Damon breaks their standstill with an amused quirking of his lips and leans toward her, seemingly delighted.

"That's exactly what I find so adorable about you."

The back of his hand intentionally brushes against the knuckles of hers, still closed around the glass. The fleeting contact sends a wave of sensation through her whole body, and it's not a real feeling but a casual, disturbing brush of Damon's consciousness against hers.

For a moment, the witch glimpses the inner workings of his mind, bare and uncomplicated. He truly doesn't mind being evil, because he honestly believes that every man and woman on the planet is just a monster waiting to happen. Circumstances and interests make the most virtuous individual capable of the darkest deeds

And then… it's hard to reconcile the image of herself Bonnie sees echoing inside his head with her actual reflection.

Damon doesn't think she is the same scum that everyone else does, not yet at least.

In his eyes, she is something still untouched and unmarred by Life, a Pandora's box sealed shut but humming with raw potential.

It's almost flattering, and she is ready to bet he would seriously consider draining her if he only knew what he has just given away to her.

This new sliver of insight makes her confused and light-headed when she blinks the glaze away and her focus returns fully on him. His closeness only increases her sense of unbalance.

Bonnie sits up a bit straighter, moving her hand swiftly away from him. Irritatingly, his smirk grows wolfish in front of the evidence of her discomfort.

Fortunately, their first accidental date doesn't last any longer: Caroline and Matt have finally taken notice of something else than each other, and they are stomping to her rescue.

Unfortunately, it won't be the last time that Mystic Falls conspires to bring two of its most powerful children closer together.

**II**

Meredith McCullough used to be one of Sheila Bennett's oldest and closest friends. Easy to see how much those two women had in common…Meredith –or Auntie Mer, as Bonnie used to call her when she was younger- was a direct descendent of those famous Druids who had migrated to Mystic Falls even before the Bennett women moved on the scene.

In town, Meredith is a kind of eccentric celebrity…more reserved than Sheila was about her interest in occultism, she has a nice, normal-looking shop of herbal products and is the author of several book on world mythology.

One thing Bonnie never knew about Meredith before her grandmother's funeral, is that Meredith is a witch too.

A witch very interested in helping a novice better develop her abilities, so Bonnie often visits her shop lately. It's both a way to honor Sheila's memory and a distraction from Bonnie's recent troubles with Elena.

It's unsettling, the distance that has crept between two girls who have always been closer than sisters. Suddenly, it's like they cannot talk without starting a fight and the more Bonnie discovers herself, the more that dissonance between her and Elena grows. They don't spend as much time as they used to together. Bonnie has cheerleading and witchcraft and Caroline-supporting, Elena has Stefan, her self-imposed outsider role and Damon-flavored drama. They don't envy each other but they also don't share the same world anymore.

The abrupt change of pace in their relationship is weird and scary, but thrilling, too.

Bonnie has never wanted the spotlight her best friend so naturally occupied-she is glad to leave that to Caroline- but this feeling of being the protagonist of her life is refreshing.

Meredith is a patient teacher, more hands-on than Sheila was, but also more eager to reminisce, to share little magic-related anecdotes about her and her late friend.

Sometimes Bonnie will offer to help out with the shop only to instigate a walk down memory lane. It gives her a bittersweet comfort, to reconnect with those family roots she has ignored for so long.

Once, she decides to pass by the shop for a surprise visit and inquire about a few passages in a book she has recently borrowed…

"Meredith?" she calls out to an empty shop, and then there's just the hint of a familiar 'presence' before a door creaks and from the back room someone saunters happily behind the counter to greet her.

It's not a ruddy haired, 50-something lady with a toothy grin, but a despicable young man whose impish smile sets her nerves immediately on edge.

Especially since his chin is smudged with blood.

_It's not possible._

"You-you-" she sputters, rage making her speech falter and several jars jump on their shelves.

"Hello, Bon. Have you been avoiding me? It's been _ages_ since the last time we-"

"If you've killed her, I swear I'll set you on fire," she promises, and even in the heat of the moment she is a bit surprised at how cold and firm her threat sounds. She realizes at once, that she is ready to carry through that promise, and it would not matter if it hurt Stefan, her _friend_ Stefan.

No one will take anyone else she loves away from her and stay unpunished.

Damon tilts his head aside –a strangely bird-like gesture that never fails to disturb her-and assesses her with more attention, arrogance melting into curiosity.

He rubs the blood off his chin, pale eyes glittering with wicked amusement, and purses his lips in a sarcastic pout.

"Oh, Bonnie, you must really stop assuming the worst of me. Otherwise, when I'll be really be up to something interesting, you'll have taken all the fun out of it."

The young witch takes a deep breath, trying to focus on anything but the anger boiling up toward the surface, begging to be let out. She puts down the two cappuccinos she brought over for herself and Meredith on the counter, and her hands lay open on the wood surface with a strange calm.

"Where. Is. Meredith?" She asks, more collected, but it has no effect on her opponent, who looks more entertained and irreverent than ever.

"You should get enraged more often, it gives you quite the sexy glow."

Before she has the chance to answer that or even to decide whether to set Damon's pretty hair aflame or shove his sorry ass telekinetically against the wall, a rustling from the back room draws her attention.

"Who 's there?"

A young girl, no older than fourteen, appears behind Damon, paler than normal and with a scarf loosely draped around her neck, her carrot-colored hair in a messy ponytail. Bonnie is so shocked that it takes her more than a few seconds to recognize her as Jenny, Meredith silliest niece.

Jenny smiles, cheeks flushing profusely in embarrassment, and stutters that her aunt is out of town for some appointment with her editor and so she left her to attend to the shop for the evening.

Unsure at how she is supposed to react, Bonnie just glares and glares at Damon, who has the gall to smirk and steal a cappuccino.

"You fed on a _kid_?"

"I am not-"

"She _offered_ , and who am I to refuse some spicy Druid blood? It's not my fault Twilight has created so many vampire groupies."

Jenny's head whips toward him, her freckled face registering little surprise at his condescending tone.

"Do you think I'm a vampire _groupie_?"

"Sure. But don't worry, I won't spread it around." He winks at the girl, who folds her thin arms around herself defensively and struggles very transparently to maintain her cool.

Half of Bonnie wants to reach out to her, or to defend her, but another half knows it would be better, in the long run, to let the teen take full credit for her rash stupidity.

Damon pins the poor thing down with one of those cool, dismissive looks, enjoying his hold on her before adding casually "Now, where's that special soap I came for? "

"I'll get it now" Jenny snarls, turning on her heels and basically shooting towards the back room once more, without sparing a glance to their audience.

Bonnie is left speechless by the whole display, unable to pinpoint if Damon's attitude disturbs her more or less than Jenny's.

He sips his stolen cappuccino slowly, cocky as he turns to look at her with a certain disdainful indifference.

Her brows rise up just as disdainfully in response.

"It's surprising how every time I meet you or I hear your name in conversation, you have hit a new low."

And with that winning exit line, she smirks a little and brings her cappuccino to her lips, slowly, to mirror his action. Childish contest or not, for now this is the only confrontation she feels fully prepared to face him in, and it feels important to stand her ground, somehow.

She pretends to not notice the way Damon's gaze lingers provocatively on her mouth, trying to make her uncomfortable. It travels lower, to the book she keeps tucked under her arm and pressed against her chest.

"Hexes and Counter-Curses: A Pagan Anthology," he reads title out loud with a faint accent of approval "So that's what you have been doing lately: building up a witchy culture."

Bonnie shrugs, relaxing a bit despite herself. "It beats moping over absentee ex-lovers or plotting to steal my brother's woman."

There's a fine line between boldness and imprudence, and that comment might just have crossed it, if the shadows flashing so briefly behind the ice of Damon's eyes are of any indication. She should care more about that, but strangely, this time, possible death wishes don't matter quite so much.

Even more strangely, the vampire chooses not to take offense.

"I would love watching you to try stealing anyone's woman, if that's your team. I might even lend a few tips along the way…or lend Elena to you, since you don't have a brother of your own. Now that would be a pl- "

She interrupts his increasingly sickening daydream, shaking her head in disbelief."Have you ever had a conversation with a woman that didn't border on sexual harassment? "

Damon places his cup down and scratches his chin pensively, like he is actually considering the question.

"I don't think so," he smiles, and for an instant, his visage resembles a mischievous child's, not a remorseless killer's." But this one was a nice diversion. Feel free to invite me along for another coffee break any time. "

"I wouldn't hold your breath for that" she snorts at his back while he swaggers toward the cashier, where little Jenny waits in resentful silence with a colorfully wrapped package.

Guiltily, Bonnie reasons that it's a waste that such a bastard has such a fine backside.


	2. Chapter 2

                                 

**III**

Marquis de Sade states that the only sure way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment, and as far as Damon Salvatore can tell, the libertine was right. He has tormented females of every species –plain humans, werewolves, witches, fellow vampires- and always with very pleasurable results. Insecure women have jumped for a chance to prove their worth whether he put them down, those strong ones could be drawn in with some flattery, or an open challenge to sway his indifference and they would fold easily, becoming dependent on his attention and very determined not to lose it.

Nothing is better than quality hate sex, right? And anger…anger can open doors for the fiercest among passions.

It's a shame that sometimes, exceptions cannot be avoided.

Damon Salvatore and Bonnie Bennett have no real wish to be involved in each other's lives anymore, quite the contrary.

They simply remind each other of far too many mistakes and too many pains. Yet their existences run in parallel, inevitably connected by other people's interference. His brother is one of her closest friends, for example. Her best friend is his current obsession.

Damon will concede that Bonnie has received her fair share of torment from him, although, for once, most of it was purely unintentional.

Attraction and repulsion, in his experience, have always been two faces of the same coin. He will look at Elena and he will be both enthralled and disgusted by the differences _and_ the similarities between her and Katherine. He will feel both sympathy and resentment for the girl's devotion to his brother …and he will both admire and hate Katherine for having played him so well

Authentic feelings are rarely pure or simple. To him, at least.

This is why the straightforwardness of his interactions with Bonnie puzzles him, more often than not. He has been the guardian of her family for generations, and this pushes him to feel like he has some sort of ownership right to her. He watches her, waiting to witness her fall from grace, because adjectives like 'beautiful' and 'powerful' rarely match to 'naïve' and 'kind' for very long. She is pure and good, so it feels _real_ when she pulls away from him. Bonnie' s dislike makes more sense than Elena's understanding, so it's natural he feels a tiny bit of attraction for the witch.

He likes that she recognizes him for what he is, it amuses him that she is so loyal and adamantly fair and caring to people who don't always deserve it (nullities like Tyler Lockwood, Caroline and Mutt come to mind).

Damon likes Bonnie because he has reasons to, and she dislikes him because she has reasons not to. Simple. Natural. Obvious. So why would he mind this status quo?

Most days, the status quo keeps him on his toes and procures occasions for verbal sparring he appreciates, but few others…

Well, there are situations where it's downright inconvenient that his little witch hates his guts.

Like when they are stuck at the same table, side to side, for dinner. Thanksgiving dinner, to be precise, and he is just there to run interference between Elena and Stefan. All his clever manipulation of Jenna to score an invitation, and he gets to sit at the opposite side of the table from his intended targets, between good old Sheriff Forbes and Bonnie, Matt's mother (who loathes him violently since he ended that meaningless fling of theirs) right in front of him.

' _I know you hate me'_ \- he tugs at her mind telepathically, asking for attention- _'But this is just cruel.'_

She keeps eating and nods at something insignificant Caroline has just giggled, ignoring him for a long moment before answering in kind.

To her credit, Bonnie doesn't even try to deny she interfered with seating arrangements.

' _Please. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? You walked straight into this one. '_

' _So? Get a life. Aren't you tired of playing overprotective handmaiden to the fair Elena?'_

' _Elena and Stefan are my friends. I'm not letting you ruin this for them. '_

' _Has it occurred to you that if Elena didn't want me here, all she had to do was ask me not to come? '_

He has a point here, and that gains him a rather pensive pause in their silent conversation. He can feel the tension running along the temporary link they have created between their minds, and that suggests to him that she is not ready to let the matter rest just yet.

' _You and Elena'_ -Bonnie admits, more subdued- ' _have in common this conviction that you can have anything and everything you can possibly desire. It doesn't work like that in real life. Nobody can have it all, no strings attached. When it comes to the real choice, you know she will take Stefan just as well anyone who has ever seen them together once knows it. You know it, and I think it's why you hold onto the chase so much. '_

There's a quality to her mind's voice that is nearly… gentle, when it should have been hard. It shouldn't surprise him, because Bonnie Bennett is not the type to kick the enemy when he's down. Her recalcitrant sympathy is offensive in itself, but it's her opinion of his intentions that bothers him the most. For whatever reason, he is miffed that the little witch refuses to take him seriously, and thinks he is merely playing around _pointlessly_ with her friend .

' _I_ do _want Elena.'_

' _I believe that. But I also believe that it's easier for someone like you to want someone you cannot ever truly have.'_

His jaw clenches hard at that 'someone like you' delivered with something that tastes like fucking pity. He won't defend himself before a measly, lowly human girl.

Plus, the turn this mental chat is taking is far, far less entertaining than he had planned for in the beginning.

Serious conversations are _so_ annoying and boring, especially when he doesn't have the upper hand.

' _If you must talk nonsense to me, do it out loud. The Sheriff is looking weirdly at me. '_

When the link between their minds snaps shut, he doesn't expect that Bonnie would be so collaborative to indulge his request. But before he can open his mouth to flatter dear Elizabeth Forbes, the brunette turns toward him and offers a random comment on Jenna's stuffed turkey.

He pretends he doesn't appreciate it and concentrates on how much prettier her chocolate locks look when they are stylishly curled and pulled up like that, to frame the caramel curve of her neck. He imagines, for a few seconds, that he could just grab her and run his fangs along that lovely arc. To nip at that soft, inviting skin before sinking his teeth in.

Damon kind of regrets that the first and only time he had tasted her, it had been in anger.


	3. Chapter 3

                                            

**IV**

"You are not very good at self-preservation, are you?"

Despite Damon's choice of words, his tone as he wraps his leather jacket around her shoulders is soft, indulgent in a saddened sort of way.

His gesture is not dictated so much by gallantry as much as it is by practical necessity: her purple dress is severely torn where her left shoulder meets her arm, allowing him to see the scraped skin there. His eyes rake over her shivering body, inspecting her for further damage while his arm surrounds her waist to keep her close to him.

Bonnie must be in shock, because she doesn't twist out of his hold, as he expected she would. It feels strange, the heat of her form drawn so closely to his cooler one. Instinct would command him to press her tightly to his side, but respect has him maintaining a minimal, considerate distance.

He doesn't smell fresh blood on her, and an unusual sensation twists inside him, in between relief and pride, at knowing she is not even bruised. She will probably have a few black and blue spots on her back in the morning, but nothing worse.

Even that angers him, makes him want to tear apart slowly, piece by useless piece, the mongrel who has dared to slam her against that wall.

He spares a glance at the werewolf, passed out on the floor and he feels his fangs grazing his tongue, a tightness pulling at his features like they are about to break into his 'game face' without his notice.

He doesn't know what to do with this _thing_ that feels way too much like protectiveness and that unnerves him more and more when Bonnie stays quiet and unresponsive under his hands, just staring down at the unconscious body. So he decides to brush aside the confusion and resort to what he knows best. Mockery.

"Honestly, what is wrong with you? Do you know how to pick them, because-"

He hesitates to bring up the latest vampire playboy she went out with, the one who had eventually kidnapped her and led Grandma Bennett to her death. That confuses him, too. He is not usually known for sparing any punches to anyone, so why should it be different now?

Bonnie puts her arm on his, restraining him. "It's fine, I knew he would transform tonight. "

From the way she says it, it sounds like she is referring to one of her precognitive visions.

"You went _willingly_ near a werewolf, in his first full moon night?" – he reiterates, not bothering to hide the incredulity- "I said it once and I will say it again: what's wrong with you?"

His tone seems to bring her back to reality, because she lets his arm go and shrugs off his touch, finally animate again, her voice no longer faint and distant when she replies. "I've known Tyler all my life. I know how it feels to find out that you are anything but normal, and I wanted to help him, if I could."

And naturally, there was no doubt in Bonnie' s mind that if Lockwood saw her witnessing his first transformation, he was going to confide in her.

Silly, suicidal little girl.

"I take back my question. You're either crazy or stupid."

"I don't expect you to understand," She snaps, defensive, moving away from him and toward the _dog._

"Of course I don't," he replies, purely on the basis of principle, frowning as Bonnie kneels over _Toby_ and gets an amulet out of her pocket to slip around his neck.

"It's not like I couldn't protect myself."

She had fought off Mr. Furry quite well for a while, to say the truth, but he wasn't about to admit it, not only because it would have meant admitting that he had laid low and watched the action from the shadows for some time.

"So you were just letting him toss you around for fun? I didn't know you liked t that rough."

Just remembering the werewolf 's taste in his mouth has Damon cringing. Bitter flavor, although the blood was powerful in its way. Not to mention the damned _fur_ in his mouth, damn!

The fight before the feeding, instead, had been a decent workout. Very satisfying.

"I was trying to figure out a way to defend myself and knock him out without seriously hurting him. Sigils don't work on _awake_ wolves."

As if on cue, the werewolf's form begins shifting back to the human, vaguely familiar bulky frame.

"I'll go with you being stupid" Damon exhales in a sigh of excessively exasperated disapproval, rolling his eyes upward. Stupid feels the appropriate word to him. You cannot neuter a werewolf permanently, so why bother with silliness as temporary sigils, risking your short, mortal existence on top of it?

"You are an asshole." The little witch bites back automatically, looking away from her shiny new protégé to narrow her eyes on him " but thank you for helping."

_Always so polite._

Why did he help, anyway? A whim, he reminds to himself.

_Merely a whim._

"I was hungry" –he shrugs off like it doesn't matter, because it does _n't_ \- "and he was handy. Although wolf's blood doesn't compare to witch's blood at all. You were so much sweeter on the tongue, and the eyes. "

Once upon a happy time, that phrasing would have majorly upset her and sent her into a frenzy of hostility. By now, she has become wise to his ways, and it doesn't even faze her.

"You really know how to put someone at ease after an aggression, don't you? "

"I try"- the vampire smirks, nearly giddy under her quasi-praise – "what are you doing with him, now? Changing him into a toad until the night is over?"

It's her turn to roll her eyes at his antics. "Now I'm going to call Stefan, and we'll bring Tyler to his home, where he'll stay asleep until the morning."

"No need. I'm already here. " A deep voice comes from behind them and Stefan is standing between the two of them before anyone can blink.

Overdramatic, hero-complex-bearing little brother. Urgh.

"I will do it alone, before someone sees anything questionable." And at Bonnie' s nod, the younger vampire takes Tyler in his arms, bridal-style and jumps to the nearest roof. Bonnie blinks at the spot Stefan had occupied until a few seconds earlier, and Damon snickers at the image he will use to tease his brother for, like… _years_ to come.

_Thank you so much for the weaponry, Little Witch._

"Ah, now I've rescued you, you can stop bringing up that one time I nearly sucked you dry."

He says, somehow triumphantly, and he sees, out of the corner of his eye, that Bonnie is pulling his jacket tighter around her and biting her bottom lip trying not smile.

What an odd night, he considers, wondering why she is not rushing inside the club, back to Elena and her other, stupider friends.

Then it occurs to him that she is not exactly presentable, in her current state.

"If I will call us even, will _you_ stop bringing that nice trauma up? "

"Perhaps, but I still will want that jacket back by the morning."

"Charming"

Damon doesn't mention how absolutely _titillating_ he finds the idea of his favorite leather jacket absorbing the scent of his favorite witch.

"Thanks. Are you heading back home to curl up in your bed and cry, or do you care for a drink? I promise to be helpful _regardless_."

He can tell from the look on her face that she is dying to call him a sexual deviant or something similar, and fighting the urge not to give him any satisfaction. How cute of her.

"I'm not exactly eager to head back there, reduced like this" - she sighs, resigned, combing her hair with her fingers – "but if you compel barman to hand me a beer, you can sit across from me until Stefan returns and then get your precious jacket back."

**AN: A special thank you to RockerChick08 for the constant support and awesome, thoughtful reviews. I don't think I can express with words how much I appreciated that, so… PM me a theme and I'll write the next drabble/one-shot on 'Witches and Vampires' just for you. :)**

**V**

Some nights Bonnie awakens and just can't fall back to sleep. Some nights, she can't manage to get any sleep at all.

It's when her dreams become nebulous and disquieting for long stretches of time –weeks, occasionally- full of incoherent images and feelings she doesn't understand or find a connection to and she just gets that terrible sense of doom and ruin hovering over Mystical Falls.

So when there's that mood in the air, it's nice to have something to do instead of just tossing and turning around in her bed. Besides…every serious witch knows that the best moment to find and extract from ground Mandrake roots is past midnight on a Dark Moon night.

Meredith would have probably warned her against the prospect of having a long moonlight-less stroll in the woods, alone, a basket under her arm if Bonnie had made her intentions known. And the brunette knows that, if she had asked, Stefan would probably not have minded accompanying her, and Tyler…well, Tyler has made clear that he is very willing to repay the help she has recently given him to accept his family history.

Not going alone would have been more careful and Bonnie has always been nothing if not smart and prudent in her choices of action.

She doesn't regret taking the less safe road, for once. It's so much nicer, to feel nocturnal air on her skin as her energy ball floats ahead of her to light up her path, small noises of nature breaking the quiet. It feels good, knowing she has no need to fear those creatures that lurk hidden in the darkness, because she is one of them.

After being scared of her psychic abilities for so long, it feels amazing to fully embrace the power within and not be helpless.

Once she reaches the meadow – it has taken a lot of concentration and many attempts to divine the right spot where those plants grew with her pendulum- she puts her empty basket down in the grass, and sits, shedding her coat and taking off her shoes.

She is freezing at first, while she breathes in and out, listening in to her surroundings and before shifting her concentration inward. Then she begins to be aware only of the energy that moves inside and out of her, enclosing part of the meadow in a protective ring of light. It's like a rain of dancing glowworms is tracing a circle of power around her, and the sight is undeniably beautiful.

 _True magic is always poetry in motion, Bonnie. Parlor tricks are just whatever gets the job done-_ she can feel her grandmother's voice murmuring, in the back of her mind, and for the first time in a long, long time Bonnie feels safe and completely content. Almost happy.

She rises and begins to dance to a rhythm that comes from somewhere deep inside her, allowing the force dormant in her blood to stir slowly awake.

When he flies by, she doesn't notice the crow that silently perches on a fir just outside her protective circle, watching.

From his vantage point, Damon observes intently every move of hers, staying very still.

Her body undulates and glows in the darkness, and while her bare feet slap rapidly on the cold ground, her thin arms up in the air, he can sense the supernatural force thickening around her tiny, breakable figure… such an intoxicating, mesmerizing contrast.

Power seeps out of her wide, glazed eyes, her open lips, her sweaty visage and limbs. Her dark, messy locks whip her shoulders while she throws her head from side to side.

Damon wants to touch her, so badly than he can't think of anything but how she would feel, feverish and warm, bronzed skin wet with perspiration sliding easily against his, cooler and paler.

At this moment, Bonnie is not entirely herself, not entirely human anymore but the avatar for deities older than Time.

Her body arches and bends, slim and sinuous, her movements more and more frantic as the tempo grows and nears its peak.

He can suddenly picture himself very vividly, pinning her down in the grass, possessing her brutally until she clenches in a shuddering surrender around him.

His animal form quivers, itching to shift back to the original as the thirst for her blood screams loud inside his head, nearly silencing every other thought.

Yet he can't look away from her, not when he can feel the _power_ raising once more. It fills her frail, human frame up like boiling water would fill a cup, furious and rash, flowing from bottom up in vibrating spirals.

Then, finally the invisible chord snaps inside of Bonnie. A violent rush of energy pours out of her, like blood from a deep cut, and she screams in the night, her wild, inarticulate cry emptying her of everything she has. Bonnie falls to her knees, laughing senselessly, spent but transparently exhilarated at the magic she has released into the world.

Several dark shapes shoot out of the ground to glide through the air and hang over her head and swirl above her in a circular motion. Leaves fall off and Damon realizes they are plants…mandrake plants, probably.

He keeps observing while the roots levitate in an ordinate succession toward and inside the basket on the ground.

The witch's eyelids have dropped closed and she is still subtly humming with sex and life and every good thing Damon has forgotten how to feel, every hair on her body raised.

She looks delicious.

He can hear how loud the irregular beating of her own heart is, and it excites him as much as her return to a more ordinary conscience, as her breath slows down.

The girl is shuddering, the ghost of a grin stretching her lips while she rubs her arms self-consciously, letting him know she is fully lucid again. Soon, she becomes aware of his presence and blinks dazedly, looking in his direction, irises glossy and wider than normal. Her pink tongue darts to wet her mouth slowly while she lifts herself up from the grass, sluggishly but also with a very self-aware sensuousness.

For a brief, hungry instant it's very easy to believe she is reeling him in on purpose, but then Bonnie shakes any lingering after-effect of her magic-high off and puts her coat back on, turning her back to him.

Her power circle dissolves like fairy dust as she walks away from him, among the trees, ignoring his very presence like he is invisible.

Pissed off and still quite aroused, the vampire takes a full minute to cool off before spreading his wings and flying after her retreating figure, cawing loudly in her wake.

She stops and waits when she hears him, no longer pretending but unsure about what this casual meeting will turn out to be. With Damon Salvatore, you never truly know what to expect.

He lands two feet from her and shape-shifts before even grazing the ground.

"You must really be bored."

She blurts out without thinking, her limbs very relaxed and her mind pleasantly blank, despite the unexpected situation. In all honesty, she still feels full of that languorous warmth that accompanies the aftermath of her magical workings, and she doesn't want to spoil her mood. Not even for the likes of a certain blue-eyed devil.

"Don't flatter yourself too much, Little Red Riding Hood. I'm not stalking you. I just got hungry and helped myself to a few campers. But don't worry, nobody died…this time."

"Good to know"-Bonnie nods, tucking a dark lock behind her ear and offering him a forced smile- "what do you want?"

Obviously, he ignores her question completely and moves so fast that he is suddenly in her face and peering into her basket.

"Mandrake roots"- he tut-tuts her with a smoldering, devious grin that jumbles her train of thought- "so it's true. Our resident Good Girl is going over to the dark side. Elena is very worried. "

And he has listened very comfortably from his bedroom to the heated ramblings that got dumped on Stefan at regular intervals. Damon, however, has found the fact that the last living Bennett was getting out of her comfort zone nothing but intriguing. He would have never guessed that someone so…straight-laced had it in her.

Bonnie holds her chin high, squaring her jaw and hardening her gaze slightly.

"For your information, mandrake roots do wonders in healing potions. "

"Hm. Call me paranoid, but I don't think that was the use you had in mind."

"What's you point?" she all but growls, obviously unnerved now, tapping her foot against the ground.

"Perhaps I have no point and we are just a guy and a girl, engaging in trivial conversation."

Although he makes it sound like a joke, in the fluorescent light of her energy ball, with his flawless white complexion and his eyes shining like azure crystals, he truly looks …very reassuringly boyish.

Less handsome and more beautiful if that makes sense to think of, and it may be an illusion but it still puts her at better ease.

"Unless we were a witch and a vampire, wandering in the woods."

When she gets walking again, he keeps up with her. The energy ball sizzles before them, leading them forward.

"Dark doesn't always mean evil," she adds eventually, without questioning herself about why.

Her voice sounds lower and breathier to her ears than she would have anticipated, and she forces herself to stare ahead, to not mind that she just invited the most vicious creature she knows to express judgment on her life.

"I should know," Damon acknowledges, his tone more amused than taunting. It's as close as he will allow himself to get to agreeing with her. Yet, leaving it at that doesn't satisfy him. He feels like he has said nothing at all, so he adds: "Evil is a human term, it's up to you to decide what it means. I have never known a powerful witch who has not redefined the boundaries to get in-depth."

Perhaps it sounds cryptic, but Bonnie nods like she understands.

Floods and tornados are not evil, yet they are incredibly destructive. Fire can be used to protect life or destroy it. Nature simply is, and it follows no moral code but a law of necessity that transcends the human conception of right and wrong. A witch cannot reach the fullness of her powers, unless she is willing to play along with that truth and face the shadow together with the light.

"I was surprised at how I liked it, being the one to control my powers, instead of having them control me. It was exhilarating."

That is something she has not ever really said to anyone before, and maybe she is saying it to him only because he is the one person -among her acquaintances- who might not judge her stance on this issue. And she had never realized before how much she wanted to just …say it and have someone see all of her.

"It becomes you," Damon whispers, and she doesn't ask what he means, however much that statement puzzles her.

They walk together, side by side, until they are out of the woods and the outline of her house cuts the horizon. When Bonnie turns to bid him goodbye and her eyes meet only empty space, it's not a surprise.

It doesn't ruin anything.


	4. Chapter 4

**VI**

Contrary to popular opinion, Mandrake roots are not useful when it comes to fertility and love spells, although Bonnie supposes they could come handy in healing a scarred uterus or something similar. Their main use is –surprise, surprise –in the making of a poison that can be modified to affect in various ways nearly every kind of magical creature- from trolls to pixies to vampires to even darker monsters- to incapacitate or to kill, depending on the dosage.

Even more importantly, witches use mandrake for a very special kind of oil. 'The Flying Ointment', they called it in the Dark Ages, because the Inquisition was certain that it enabled witches to fly on their brooms. In reality, the only place it allowed them to fly to…was inside other people's dreams. Some sorceresses had used them to bend people to their whims after plaguing them with horrific nightmares, others had used it to drive a potential lover to obsession, others yet had destroyed their enemies' sanity.

Bonnie had often shuddered reading of such terrible stories, but it had not dissuaded from her intent. She trusts herself and her integrity to not abuse her supernatural means, and she is determined to not be helpless ever again. Since Grams died, the guilt of not being strong enough to save her or to resolve her problems on her own plagued her constantly, together with the fear of being forced into a similar situation before she is ready.

She knows now that there are threats, hidden in the darkness, and it would be so very easy to give in to the terror of her visions, the fear of losing all that she hold dear, only because of what she is. Unless she can be certain of her capacity to fight back.

So she doesn't feel guilty and she doesn't blame Elena for being a bit judgmental. Someday the other girl will thank her.

The real problem with mandrake roots is that they cannot be simply ripped from the ground like you would do with every other plant. They are sort of…animated and their scream when they are ripped out can truly either kill or send into a coma the less experienced spell-worker. They need to be 'put to sleep' with magic before being moved and you can't touch them with your bare hands because they are poisonous. You can't even dice them like potatoes once you collect them, because you need to kill them first...with alcohol poisoning. This requires keeping each root separated from the others, inside a jar filled with an alcoholic beverage for about three months.

Therefore, by the day after Bonnie's stroll in the woods, the young witch is already wondering if she has not bitten off more than she is able to chew.

Now she has her bedroom's cupboard housing jittering jars with creepy, potato-like things that are shaped like human bodies and somehow manage to _blubber_ while immersed in bourbon. Apparently they don't just get killed right away.

It's a relief that her father is out of town for work… she will have time to replace the missing bottle without being seen.

The liquor store cashier eyed her with a certain suspicion when she went in, but he wouldn't call her on her age when she eventually would go to him with her purchase of choice. The popular high school crowd has its ways to procure 'heavy drinks' for parties and she asked Tyler to drop in a good word with his 'contact.'

Bonnie frowns, remembering the excuse she had used with her friend. She could have trusted Tyler with the truth. After all, he knows she is a witch, and he is a werewolf, so there is not much of a reason to lie with him. Sure, she saw him being a real jerk with a lot of people through the years, but she was never one of them.

So why had she told him that she had accidentally broken the bottle cleaning house? She could have told at least part of the truth and for some reason, it puzzles her to know that she lied on automatic pilot, relying on Tyler's eagerness to please.

She is not using anyone, so why was she so sincere to a vampire she dislikes and so reluctant to be that way with a wolf she likes?

Why is she even giving the fact all this importance?

"We keep meeting in the most interesting places."

She turns away from the string of bourbon bottles she has been glaring at, only to focus the glare on Mystic Falls' resident source-of-all-evil, who stands at the other end of the aisle.

It's bizarre how just one of those nasty smirks of his manages to transform the most smoothly-pronounced line into a provocation.

"Is stalking a popular vampire hobby, or just yours?"

She doesn't add _'and Stefan's'_ out of loyalty, although she was a little freaked out when Elena told her whole the story of how he stalked for months before approaching her. It's details like this one that always remind her that vampires are more than humans on a blood-diet. They don't think like men anymore.

"I would call it a professional diversion."

Damon's smirk thins, but she sees it only for a few seconds because, only a disturbance of air after, he is right behind her, his chest grazing her shoulder, and she is not sure of how to move away without giving him a chance to make it embarrassing.

"A century of experience, and you still don't get the concept of personal space," she huffs instead, remaining very, very still.

"Oh, I get it all right. I just find it overrated in most cases. "

Turning around to face him and shouldering him away forcefully, Bonnie finds herself mirroring what she calls 'his usual expression': a sugarcoated smile with a bare hint of friendly, elegant threat.

"Unless it keeps Stefan away from your evil master plans"

"You don't get nearly enough credit for your wit."

Arching her brow inquisitively, she didn't step away from him. "Are you truly quoting 'Gossip Girl'?"

"A good line is a good line, it doesn't matter where it comes from"- he tilts his head, taking on a pensive pose- "I remember it because my memory is just as impressive as the rest of me, what's your excuse?"

Unusually bold, the witch leans marginally closer, so that she is practically breathing on his chin and looking up into his dilated blue eyes: "No need to get defensive, Mr. Homicidal Maniac."

The action is so close to _flirting_ that it sends a ripple of shock through the brunette as soon it's done and the scene replays in her head.

When the realization has her shrinking back from him, her posture stiffer as she straightens and bites the inside of her cheek to keep the smile unwavering, she notices the same surprise reflected on his face, at least until his visage goes utterly blank again and his gaze grows less genuine and more forceful, challenging.

The moment passes between them where it feels like they are hanging on a precarious balance. The vampire might push or the witch might retreat, and it would change everything in a multitude of unexplainable ways.

But it passes, and they dismiss each other at the same moment with nothing but a blink.

"So _Bonnie_ , are you an alcoholic?"

Damon's tone is smarmy and insinuating, his body angled away from her. Bonnie rolls her eyes at him, relieved that everything is normal again.

"It's like Hitler just asked Buddha if he ever had a single violent thought."

"I hope you understand the comparison is not exactly flattering _to you_."

"Goodbye, Damon"

She shakes her head like she finds him impossible to deal with, grabbing a bottle off the shelf, and he grins over her exasperation but doesn't look after her as she leaves.

He tells himself he doesn't want to. Why would he?

**VII**

The concept is simple.

Caroline has organized this nice school auction for beneficence: bide well and you take off for a date with one of her hot cheerleaders.

Damon would think the whole ordeal pathetic if not for the significant particular that the blonde has managed to rope in Elena as well and Stefan is absolutely convinced that his older brother wouldn't miss an opportunity like this to spirit her away for the evening.

It sounds like something he would do, but being lectured _and_ warned off in advance by Stefan has truly ruined all the anticipation, regardless of how much he hates to disappoint.

Inspiration strikes him while he is feeding off Stefan's silent glowers and Caroline and Elena's occasional concerned glances.

Bonnie walks up to the stage, gorgeous in her sea green, knee-length dress, dark hair perfectly curled and in two loosened, naughty-school girl plaits, and he can't avoid wetting his lips in satisfaction.

"This is my best friend, here – Caroline perks up into the microphone, in that manner of hers he has always particularly disliked- So we will start the bidding at 100 dollars."

"100 dollars." a geek parrots from the back.

"200 dollars," says a confident voice from Damon's right.

 _Stupid dog_ \- the vampire condescendingly acknowledges, glancing at the jock and sitting up with a devilish grin.

"500 dollars." He offers giddily, because if there's something Damon Salvatore doesn't do, it's half-measures.

Eerie silence follows and the outraged expression on the witch's face is _priceless_. Caroline's mouth is hanging open, Stefan's forehead is brooding harder than usual and Elena's lovely lips are in a thin line.

Damon feels immensely satisfied.

"We have 500 dollars over there". -The blonde chirps with a blindingly artificial grin - "Do I hear 600, somewhere?"

"600," Tyler Lockwood _insists_ , much to Damon's annoyance. It makes his fangs flash against his tongue that Bonnie lightens up from within instead. Honestly, why would want someone like _her_ to defile herself with that Neanderthal?

"Very well-" Caroline hurries up, eager to finish the deal, but she is not truly given the chance to.

"1000 dollars."

 _Ignore Elena, bid on the best friend, piss off Stefan and all is right with the world. -_ his subconscious sings along. It's quintessentially the perfect plan and he is very proud of it.

People are staring at him and that just makes his triumph better.

The pause where Bonnie keeps glancing pleadingly at the werewolf and Stefan and Elena whisper to each other stretches a bit long before Caroline finally surrenders.

"Going once"- the head cheerleader announces to the room, visibly resigned- "1000 going twice… sold."

Some nobodies clap while the witch strolls off the stage and makes her way over to his seat.

"Congratulations"- she simpers sweetly while she sits beside him, green eyes hostile and hard – "on ruining my evening."

"Thank you", he dishes back, grin actually reaching his eyes as he gives the Lockwood boy a victorious little wave.

"You're welcome," Bonnie says, at the same time that her mind reaches out for his, literally shoving a thought into his head: _'I know what you are doing and I won't let you use me to bait Elena, is that clear?'_

Once more, he is surprised at how easily she gets his schemes. Bright girl.

' _Don't sell yourself short, sweetheart. It was 1000 dollars I just invested into your company. Maybe I like it. And I have seriously won you major popularity points, so why complain?'_

' _Gee, I don't know. Probably because every minute I spend with you, it's one minute less I might be spending with someone who is not playing games, and whom I might actually like?'_

And with a mental snort, Bonnie's mind backs away from his and he feels that loss more keenly than he thinks he should.

"We are all playing"- Damon comments out loud, casually running his thumb over the back of her hand- "and you can do better than a drooling dog."

She shivers and flinches away from his touch, her expression wary. He doesn't like it.

"Says the resident sociopath."

Damon brings her to see a British movie 'The Wicker Tree,' and while the stubborn girl will not allow him to touch her, not even a little (he gets a tiny electric jolt as soon as his palm _grazes_ her knee) …he doesn't get bored.

Her opinions are not uninteresting to hear, and he gets to complain about the 2006 remake of a similar movie 'The Wicker Man' as long as he wants.

Apparently her grandmother got her to see the 1976 version once, and she was disappointed when the version with Nicolas Cage turned out to be a pale imitation of the original.

All things considered, it's the longest they've ever talked without her biting his head off at some point. It makes him feel almost …accomplished.

He walks her home like he's the man he used to be before Katherine, and the last thing Bonnie tells him is "this has been less painful than I thought it was going to be"

"I _behaved". -_ he preens a little- _"_ do I get a reward?"

"Sure. I won't curse you into sparkling like Edward Cullen for dragging me into your insane little plots."

But underneath the snark, there's something else that suggests to him he might kiss her now and _not_ have his hair set on fire, like she promised she would if he tried _anything_. She looks relaxed, the same content glow about her he sees on the witch when she is around her closest friends, having fun. Damon thinks he might be pleased that he was the one to give her that, if he allowed himself to be.

Something clenches inside him as he shakes the feeling off. Acting all chivalrous and kissing naïve girls on their doorstep is not him.

"Feel free to share around with your girlfriends how brilliant of a gentleman I can be."

And just like that, the sense of possibility hanging between them is shattered. Her eyes lose some of that shine as her guard goes up again. "Dream on."

Bonnie doesn't sound disappointed or angry but he feels, deep down, that she should be. It's what _he_ feels.

Walking back to the Salvatore boarding house, he can't truly explain to himself why he hadn't exploited that golden opportunity.

He could have kissed her, whether it was means for a purpose or not, and he would have enjoyed it.

Since when is Damon Salvatore the one to deny himself anything?

 _It's because you know you don't deserve it, something like that, so pure and good. You would destroy it. You would destroy her-_ taunts a voice that sounds way too much like Katherine's, from the back of his mind.

Damon blocks it out until he has completely convinced himself that he never heard it in the first place.


	5. Chapter 5

 

**VIII**

Bonnie would be the last person to deny she has issues with Damon Salvatore. He has basically abused one of her childhood friends – God knows, it is easy to feel protective of Caroline, with all the emotional baggage the other girl drags alongside herself- and started a chain of events that brought her grandmother to her death. She saw him being cruel to his younger brother and shamelessly interested in her other best friend. She knows he doesn't often concern himself with the consequences of his whims, that he is smart, but constantly puts that intelligence to ill-use, that he likes hurting others for his twisted fun and that he most likely doesn't mind the idea of killing again in the near future.

He is crass and honest whenever it suits him, and a suave, manipulative liar whenever it benefits him.

He is handsome, charming and very aware of it, even worse, he rarely shies away from using it to his advantage.

He is capable of compassion occasionally, and the way he held onto his love for Katherine, the same way he tries to love Elena now…is the way every woman dreams of being loved someday.

So, you see, Bonnie is not blind to his faults and she doesn't need to pretend they mean he has no feelings.

She doesn't hate Damon for being that way, but she decided long time ago she was not ever going to like him. That is the root of all her present issues with him, because –however much she has willed herself not to notice- all those random meetings between her and the vampire are messing with her levelheaded resolution.

When they are alone, it's easy to forget all the reasons she should not appreciate his company. He is a brilliant conversationalist and his personality is this unstoppable, magnetic force that eventually grows on you over time.

It scares Bonnie, that she has let herself get so used to his presence to almost take for granted that Damon is part of the natural order of things.

Even worse, she had realized last night, she _wanted_ to be kissed by him. Although she knew his showing-off at the auction was all part of a ploy to get at Elena, that date with Damon felt real to her. She had felt at the time that it was real for him too, but by the morning after she was sure of the contrary.

Feeling _anything_ for him is a betrayal of too many others in her life, but before that, it's a betrayal of herself and everything she has ever believed in. She knows he can't be trusted and it's silly to allow something so volatile as desire to distract her from that.

Desire is a natural reaction, especially to a sexy, older, dangerous guy but one that could be controlled and forgotten on a whim.

Particularly if there's another hot guy waiting in the wings, hounding her for a date.

Hence, she stops stalling and accepts Tyler's offer of 'hanging out'. The witch and the werewolf: it might just be the kind of normal that would work for her right now. They could fit just fine together.

She wears her best tight-fitting jeans, a neo-hippie style emerald shirt and her most contagious smile to meet Tyler at Mystic Grill. She has fun with him for exactly 35 minutes before he gets up from their table to greet an old friend he spotted at the bar.

Bonnie ends up waiting for the next 45 minutes, increasingly embarrassed and willing him to return like she could conjure him up by the sheer refusal to believe he could ditch her so callously.

 _What have I possibly done so wrong? –_ She is wondering, angrily scowling at her milkshake until it starts boiling.

"You better get yourself under control, Glinda," The cool weight of a hand on her shoulder brings her out of her trance-like confusion, and she blinks the fury away, startled that she just lost control in a public place.

"Is that my new nickname?"

"It fits."

Bonnie doesn't complain as Damon plops down onto the seat Tyler is supposed to be occupying. A cursory glance across the room demonstrates that nobody is looking at her strangely.

"Did you see if anyone noticed?" she asks, cringing in shame, and half-wondering why he is not already picking on her.

"No," the vampire shrugs jovially, sizing her up in transparent appreciation and lingering on her cleavage. She would complain about it, but after being dumped by Tyler on their first date, it kind of cheers her up, so she crosses her arms in front of her chest and plays the oblivious card.

"Did you want something?" she tries her best to sound standoffish and secure, but her voice is not working quite right. Of all the people she wanted witnessing this moment of supreme social humiliation, _he_ was the very last one on the list.

"Just you." The rich, suggestive tone doesn't really leave much doubt as to what he means and it sends a flush of heat creeping up her neck to her blushing cheeks.

It has to be some sort of miracle that she manages to dissimulate her reaction with a reproachful and firm: "We are not going to sleep together, Damon."

"Yet"

"Or ever"

"Witch, you wound me. That was cold."

"Yeah"- she replies, layering every word with heavy sarcasm- "if you had a heart, I bet it would be broken."

Damon laughs, blue eyes crinkling in genuine amusement. "Oh, Bon-Bon you are just _so_ admirable. Whenever life puts you down, you are still full of spirit, _rejected_ or not."

More determined than ever to not let him see exactly how humiliated she actually feels, Bonnie shakes her head and flashes a blinding smile at the asshole.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to bring that up."

The vampire has the gall to wave his hand in the air in a dismissive gesture, his flawless visage the very mask of annoyance.

"No reason to get all fussy over a little accident. Honestly, how much good taste can you expect from a flea-bitten animal? Your hotness was wasted on him, anyway."

"Hm, thank you"

How else was she supposed to respond to his confusing, abrupt change of tone? What was it, a trick to disorient her? Was he bipolar, or something?

"You're welcome"

A bold hand skims over her leg, before she fights the shock off and violently grips his wrist, digging her nails in and dragging it off her flesh.

"Ow."

"Be grateful we have an audience and I can't set you on fire"

"You know you don't really want to, Little Witch. Have we not danced around all this sexual tension long enough?"

He sounds so serious that Bonnie almost believes him. This is why she bolts up out of her seat, realizing that staying put is only giving him the impression she wants _it_.

"I'm leaving " She assures unnecessarily, tone more faint than pissed off, regardless of her intentions.

Damon doesn't reply, just leans his chin over his hand and regards her with a mischievous expression she really doesn't care to interpret.

As a matter of fact, she barely manages to get out of Mystic Grill to the parking lot before _something_ gets a hold of her forearm and pulls her toward a narrow space between two buildings, so fast that she doesn't really have the time to resist properly.

"Are you insane?" – she hisses in the face of a very amused vampire-"Anyone could have seen you!"

"I couldn't care less about who sees what."

Resigned to suffer through his antics until he has finished entertaining himself at her expense, Bonnie tugs her arm free of his hold and huffs "Why are we hiding here?"

Splaying his hands on her hips and backing her gently against the wall, he leans forward, wearing a dangerous and inviting imitation of a smile. " I just forgot to give something to you last night."

Suddenly, Damon presses his mouth to hers and runs his tongue over her lips. He kisses her harshly, like he wants to punish her for something, or cleanse her from his system.

And she kisses him back with an urgency she never thought herself capable of.

The pleasure is a liquid, _alive_ thing slithering through her senses and making everything but Damon's taste and touch hazy and unsubstantial. The vampire is clutching her to him in a vice she couldn't escape from if she wanted to, but even that mildly painful pressure adds to the fire igniting in her belly and spreading rapidly to her blood. She has never felt so hot and so dirty at once, yet she can't get enough of it. Her arms wrap around his neck eagerly, bringing him closer, and her body grinds against his roughly as her back is pushed harder against the wall.

The immediate intensity of their mutual response to each other is more than a little overwhelming. Not to mention scary.

Their minds collide as well, and before she can think of putting a stop to it, her thoughts and his are swirling together in a colorful blur of images and sounds. Bonnie can perceive his lust, angry and predatory, urging him to stake a claim on his 'territory'. His mouth slides along her jaw to her neck, relentless and avid, and his fangs brush her oversensitive skin, leaving behind an abraded trail.

His lips lay a wet, possessive kiss on her pulse point and then he pulls at her hair hard and then the sharp, puncturing pain comes as his bite has her vision swimming with tears.

Damon sips her blood slowly, rubbing her back in reassuring motions.

 _Just a taste_ – his voice echoes wantonly inside her head- _I won't take too much._

Breathing becomes a hard, labored process and it feels like she is at the very center of a kaleidoscope of contrasting sensations and impressions, pleasure and pain entwining so tightly that it's impossible to tell them apart.

Yet, it's difficult to summon the energy to deny him, sensing just how much he craves her essence flowing inside his veins.

Behind her closed eyelids images form and shatter. _Tyler, Damon's hand on his arm…Tyler bleary gaze fixated on Damon's. Damon's voice, smooth and imperious: "You will leave now, and tomorrow, you will apologize and you will_ respectfully _tell her that you are not interested in going out with her again. "_

Oh, God. No.

A senseless, cold rage courses through every single part of her as her eyes snap open and she finds herself lucid and livid with anger.

Bonnie shivers, hating the numbness of her skin everywhere it touches his, hating the apparent gentleness his hand is cradling her head with, assumedly to not let her hit the wall while he feeds on her.

A blast of unadulterated power shoots from the very depth of her being, shoving the vampire to the opposite wall like he was lighter than a twig.

He collects himself right away, barely staggering as he rises, cleaning his blood-stained lips with the back of his hand.

"How could you do _that_ to me?"

Bonnie feels ridiculous for even saying those words. What did Damon Salvatore owe to her more than to anyone else? This is exactly what he did to _everyone_ : lying and manipulating to get whatever struck his temporary fancy, uncaring of the consequences. Or anyone's feelings but his.

He shrugs, unrepentant grin tugging at his swollen lips, looking so proud of himself that it makes her stupid heart ache.

"Sorry. I'm not exactly known for my unwavering impulse control."

The witch shakes her head, at a loss for words, forcing herself not to give in to the impulse to cry. _Not now, not in front of him._

"You compelled Tyler to ditch me," she accuses, closing the distance between them as if physical proximity could convey her indignation better, or give her a better chance to understand _why_.

"Yeah." He nods after a short pause, unfaltering and unfazed, and her hand hits his cheek so hard that her palm burns, before she can fully register what she is doing.

"I'm not your toy." She seethes, jaw clenched so hard that it hurts, while Damon gingerly brings his fingers to touch his stinging, flushing cheek. Like he still can't quite believe this is happening to _him_.

"I didn't think you were," he answers, with an emotionless calm she despises.

"What is this about, then?"

It's a challenge that falls on deaf ears, and they just study each other in a tense silence until Bonnie decides to pursue it further:

"What are we?"

It comes out softer than she meant it to, and it doesn't help when Damon snickers, like it's the most absurd thing he ever heard. "Do you want me to define us _now_?"

"You don't need to"- the witch shakes her head, all weakness ebbing out of her and leaving her hard and empty – "We are nothing. Even _considering_ differently would mean loathing myself as much I loath you."

Unexplainably and unexpectedly, that line seems to affect him more than her slap did. His bravado shatters and for a brief, elusive moment he just looks stricken and lost.

Then a chilly coolness erases every appearance of vulnerability from his handsome features and Damon is once more the vampire she has always known, arrogant and aloof.

It's downright perfect because Bonnie has no problem walking away from _that_ version of him without another word.

Even if his piercing, resentful eyes refuse to disengage from hers, and she can feel them on her back when she turns.

Even if breathing hurts and it feels like her heart is splintering inside her chest.

_Well, I didn't protect her lineage for generations just so Bonnie Bennett could go and taint it with the first horn dog that swatted his tail at her._

Damon grumbles at himself while he watches her back away from him, her taste still so sweetly poignant on his tongue.

It's a dumb excuse and he knows it, but then again it makes just as much sense as everything else where Bonnie is concerned.

Those feelings he is discovering in himself for the witch are nothing like the burning devotion he has transferred from Katherine to the more deserving Elena. Bonnie's presence usually has a way of firing him up and soothing him at once, just like her willful resistance to him has the power to both irritate him beyond belief and earn his respect.

That hunger laced with desperation Elena stirs inside him is what Damon used to call love, but Bonnie… Bonnie has this annoying habit of awakening a part of himself he thought was dead forever, along with that possessive desire to keep her from death and from suffering, of being _kind_ to her.

He doesn't even understand how it got to this point. When did she begin to matter? When exactly had he lost it and let her in? Damon is only sure that he has never meant to share anything with that headstrong, irksome sorceress, except one night of fiery lust or two, maybe.

Damon can still feel the heat of her kisses on his mouth, tempting him to want more.

He always gets what he wants. So what does he want the most?

Not her death, although drinking her up until the last tantalizing drop would make everything so much simpler.

He wants the witch writhing and begging for mercy underneath him, nonetheless.

He wants to have the power to break her fragile human heart.

_We are nothing. Even considering differently would mean loathing myself as much I loath you._

He wants to silence the wrathful ache stirring at the echo of those fucking words inside his memory.

Mostly, he wants Bonnie to quit making him feel like a _man_.


	6. Chapter 6

**IX**

Bonnie is not so naïve to even consider that her last slip with Damon Salvatore will remain a secret for long, but that insidious certainty is not enough to convince her to talk about it to Elena or Caroline.

She spends weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop instead, sure that he'll slide in casual conversation with Stefan or Elena some ambiguous comment or clear allusion at the most damaging moment possible.

They pretend to ignore each other in public until they have almost fooled themselves into believing their lie, but the truth is that Damon stalks her, in his animal form more often than in his human one, and she is very aware of his covert scrutiny but does nothing about it.

Even now, playing billiards with Matt, the witch can breathe in the familiarity of _his_ presence around her, the intensity of _his_ eyes boring on her back and making her skin crawl.

It's wrong, so wrong that she knows the last thing she should be doing is keeping this to herself, but at the same time she knows she will never acknowledge it if she can help it.

Matt glances across the room and frowns, looking dubious for a few seconds before looking back to her. "I don't know if you hate each other or you really, really like each other."

"It's an ongoing debate"- Bonnie sighs, leaning back and meeting his calm blue gaze with as much frankness she can- "Probably a bit of both. "

She immediately regrets saying anything because A) Damon has most definitely heard her, courtesy of his fucking super-hearing and B) How can she ask the blonde boy to keep her small confession to himself without making it sound like she has something to hide?

But Matt is already giving her that small, co-conspirator smile he sometimes ha since they were kids and she is reminded of one of his best qualities, that gentle understanding that got him so little credit but made him such a good friend.

"It'll be our secret" he says, and Bonnie feels incredibly relieved, even if she is certain that her friend would be nowhere near so complacent if he knew the whole story about the older Salvatore brother, or her situation with him.

That night, Bonnie's dream begins as a memory, although it feels more surreal than that. She is running through the woods, as quick as her legs will carry her and suddenly she is there, exactly in the spot where Emily destroyed the crystal and where Damon had nearly killed her…he's terrifying, jumping on her, lighting fast, all protruding sharp fangs and feverish, midnight-black eyes.

Except this time, she doesn't pass out, and Damon doesn't tear at her throat at all… instead she can feel his weight on her, pinning her down on the cool grass, his mouth wet and hot on her neck and jaw, branding her skin with bruising kisses, his lower body sliding easily between her spread thighs, his cutting whisper in her ear: _" Deny it all you want, but you don't crave this game any less than I do."_

It becomes all too much then: her painful awareness of every part of him so close to her, the growing, dark anticipation throbbing through her body, the feeling of his lust weighing her down until she is merely a faint, brittle version of herself. It's when she realizes everything is too vividly oppressive to be a simple dream. She tries to wake up and it feels like she is kicking through mobile sand until _he_ lets her go, bidding her goodbye with a lingering kiss on her forehead.

Bonnie comes awake with a sound gasp, clutching her sheets to her chest like they could actually shield her, or at least make her feel a little less raw and exposed.

Something clangs repeatedly against glass and the witch's head turns with startled swiftness toward the window of her bedroom.

The raven on her windowsill caws mockingly, proudly reaping the full credit for her shock.

 _He_ flies away before she can torch him alive with the flames promptly bursting from her tingling fingers.

Damn Damon, and damn those romantic fairytales that coach unsuspecting girls to wait for frogs and beasts who transform into princes out of the purest love.

How come nobody ever warns you that in plain old reality, simple _wanting_ can hurt and destroy so much?

**X**

Over time, Bonnie' s visions grow more consistent and detailed, until it becomes apparent that a very old Master Vampire is keeping a low profile while infiltrating the town with its semi-cult of brain-dead followers. Apparently Mystic Falls is some sort of psychic energy epicenter, and said Mr. Evil is planning to create the first all-vampire town, once he got the gist of which residents are 'deserving' to join his family and which are better suited to become food.

Bonnie and Stefan spend hours digging into the dusty, thick tomes of the Salvatore's library, taking notes and comparing opinions and forwarding suggestions. Elena is often not present and while Damon has occasionally indulged a desire to interrupt their research with idle provocations, he mostly prefers keeping to himself and overhearing their conversations while comfortably sprawled on his bed

He doesn't really think much of the respect and trust so clear in the witch's voice while she is talking to his brother, or the way Stefan's approach to the girl expresses pretty much the same feelings but he still soaks up those quiet interludes that reek of companionship and sympathy.

Damon tells himself he does it to keep track of their progress. He has vague interest in learning Mr. Evil's identity if they can manage to discover it, and it never hurts to know what is happening.

It doesn't explain that hollow, churning sensation at the pit of his stomach whenever he 'accidentally' listens in on Bonnie confiding in his little brother, the nausea her laughter causes him.

It turns out that new bad guy's name is Klaus.

Damon can't think of a single reason he should join the useless brigade Stefan and Alaric are putting together in order to stop him. Hell, what has this town got that's worthy of saving?

Elena may have gotten confused at some point in the past year, but she loves Stefan, and now that her choice is made, Damon has learnt he is not all that broken by it.

He can let go, finally and accept that maybe that twisted fascination with his brother's girlfriend was what he needed to move on from Katherine. So Elena never felt for him the way she does for Stefan, and she would prefer dying by his side rather than allowing Damon to keep her safe…it matters little, because Damon never felt for her the way Stefan does.

Maybe it was a nice thought for a while, that _he_ could still be a romantic, a believer, but somewhere, deep down, he knew it wasn't real.

"I heard you're skipping town."

Bonnie leans over his bedroom's threshold, arms crossed over her chest, her narrowing gaze carrying through every accusation her voice refuses to.

"I'm not cut out for the good fight and I don't like joining in a massacre unless I'm directing the show."

He shrugs, broadcasting careless indifference. Let Mystic Falls crumble to the ground- all it has ever done for him is take away the things he valued.

"Stefan could use one more experienced ally watching his back."

"Probably, but it won't be me "

"Really? If he gets himself killed who will you torture forevermore?"

Damon brightens up at the insinuation, struts toward her with a flamboyant smile that doesn't reach his icy eyes. "Interesting interrogative. How about I turn you before _you_ get yourself killed in his self-righteous crusade? "

She rolls her eyes but doesn't move away, not a little bit. "Bad idea, unless you want to wake up every morning for the next century with a bad case of sparkling skin."

He arches his brow condescendingly to her "What is up with those obsessive references to Twilight of yours? "

She smirks a little, reminding him of something he might miss when he will be gone (unless _they_ don't decide to vamp her, which is extremely likely given her witchy abilities). " I like the book so much better since Caroline mentioned you hated it."

"Mature, Little Witch, very mature."

"You can talk, Mr-I'll-leave-my-brother-to-die-because-he-won't-ask-me-to-stay."

"Do you never get tired of nagging like an old woman?"

Again, Bonnie rolls her eyes at him, dismissing his insult with a deep, bored sigh. It disturbs him: nobody can quite make him feel so _ineffective_ as this pretty, bitchy little thing.

"Just _stay_ , Damon. You know you'll regret it if we win without you."

He pretends to consider the option, like he was really just waiting for someone to give him one single reason to stay (it might be true, but he flat out refuses to recognize it), then he smirks a little wider.

"If I stay and save perfect Stefan's sanctimonious ass, what do I get in return?"

She gazes up at him with a blatant distrust that flatters him beyond the possibility of verbal expression.

"Are you working up to really asking for something or are you just fooling around?"

He shakes his head in playful disapproval. "You're not playing it according to the rules. You are supposed to line up everything you are ready to give up in order to bribe me."

"Oh, shut up," she scoffs, half-weary and half-annoyed, and she closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose like this is the longest day she's ever endured.

There's an intentional brush of her tired thoughts against his. _'For the record, I think Stefan is at least as calculating as you are. And possibly more than a little controlling. Not my definition of perfect, at all.'_

Damon won't analyze why that random observation of hers makes him want to stay. And perhaps burst into song?

He is not even sure why it makes him want to reach out and touch Bonnie, or about what that rush of warmth inside means, when he leans infinitesimally forward and tucks that dark curl behind her ear.

' _I'll stay if you invite me in'_ the vampire reciprocates.

' _In?'_

' _Your home, silly'_

She scowls, looking every bit affronted at his proposition.

' _I'm not handing you a free pass to my father's throat!'_

' _He's never there, anyway, and you can protect yourself just fine.'_

There's a very strange, pregnant with hesitation pause, then Bonnie pushes aside the hurt at that careless dig at her father's frequent absences and asks the obvious _'Why would you even want to in my home?'_

' _As a symbol of my ruthless prevarication of you?'_

' _Seriously?'_

Damon purses his lips and looks at her keenly, like he has something difficult to articulate. _'Trust is a two-way street. I have a tradition of getting screwed in this kind of deal, particularly if Elena and Stefan are somehow involved. You beg me to stay and enjoy the bloodshed. I might not mind, but I want insurance that *you* won't backstab me.'_

Bonnie doesn't believe a word of his convoluted reasoning at first, but staring him down has no effect whatsoever. He just stares back blankly, but intensely.

How does inviting Damon in prove anything? He has a standing invitation to the Gilbert household and it doesn't make Elena trustworthy, so what is his real deal?

Is his collaboration even worth the risk? Although, if Damon wanted to kill her dad in retaliation for something, not having any free access to her home wouldn't stop him…and Stefan needs Damon at his side, admit it or not.

"Okay," she nods and hopes it's the right choice.

**XI**

They wait for Klaus but they don't expect Klaus to come in with Katherine Pierce on his arm.

"You knew it. That's why you insisted I didn't leave."

Bonnie raises her gaze from her homework to her right: Damon is leaning against the window, his shoulder resting on the invisible barrier that keeps him out of the house, like it's the most comfortable position in the world. His pale eyes are a particularly frigid shade of blue, but alit with a predatory light and, although his expression is very bland, she can tell he must feel betrayed.

"I wasn't sure that Stefan was going to be able to deal with her by himself, especially if it comes to…Katherine looks too much like Elena, even if he had not loved her for all those years."

A self-deprecating grin stretches slowly along his lips. "Whereas I would have no problem with killing someone I used to worship."

"Aren't you always going on about the importance of murder and vengeance?" Bonnie questions gently, folding her arms and tilting her head aside while she leans on her side of the window.

"Would it have been easier if I had told you in advance?" She adds after a few seconds, second-guessing her decision to keep that bit of information to herself. Perhaps she had only wanted to know whether Damon was going to be able to make the right choice for the right reasons.

"I don't know, but I don't like being played with." He answers, completely still except for his moving lips, stare so firmly and utterly fixated on her face that it just makes her uncomfortably aware of his inhumanity.

"I get it, manipulation is only acceptable when _you_ are using it on _other people_ , to _your_ exclusive advantage"- the witch breathes out, before frowning- "but that's not what I was doing. I have only omitted that particular part of my visions because I didn't know how to tell it to _anyone,_ and things were already so hard for everyone involved. I guess I kept postponing until the cat was already out of the bag."

"Yes, I gathered that from the shock on my little brother and his girl's faces when our sire showed up."

He taps his fingers on the immaterial barrier between them, silently reminding her of their previous deal. It doesn't take a genius to see it's a test.

"Come in," Bonnie says, voice as unwavering as his gaze, loud and clear.

His mouth twitches in a smile that is both enigmatic and cocky before he climbs over the window, agile like a cat.

"You will help me tear that bitch apart." Damon proclaims once he is inside, moving past her to go and sit on her bed. He pronounces it as an order but the witch perceives it for the question mark it really is.

"Sure."

_Secret alliances with Damon Salvatore… what is my world coming to?_

But if it's for keeping her best friend safe, Bonnie won't allow a small inconsequentiality like irony to stop her.

They spend the night plotting against the enemy until the dawn.

It's almost fun, when compared to the day they just had.


	7. Chapter 7

**XII**

Their plan is of a frightening simplicity. Katherine has a tendency to get nostalgic whenever Bonnie is around, because of her old and controversial friendship with Emily, and Klaus wouldn't mind a vampire witch in his following.

So Damon and Bonnie make a concerted effort to get Katherine to consider how good it would be to have a new Bennett as handmaiden, potentially forever, like the idea is actually hers.

It's easier than they expect, because Katherine is nothing if not arrogant, and a few staged meetings with Bonnie are enough to rouse her interest.

Stefan and Elena are kept in the dark about the scheme, since it's unlikely that they would stand for letting Bonnie play bait under Damon's supervision, and even if they agreed, they would most surely try to take the matter under their control.

Bonnie manages to draw Katherine to the tomb's vicinity eventually, and this is where the great battle takes place.

The female vampire fights back like Hell's fire is animating her, but in the end the witch succeeds in immobilizing her long enough to allow her childe to rip her heart out.

He stares into Bonnie's eyes as he does it with his bare hands, and there's such a raw, unparalleled, raging agony in that gaze than it takes her breath away.

They set the body on fire afterwards and sit side to side, watching the flames consuming it.

His back against an oak tree, Damon struggles to contain his ragged breathing and grits his teeth angrily, pushing aside the pain.

Bonnie eyes his cuts and bruises with a concern that takes her aback. She feels like she might throw up, because the corpse looks really, really too much like Elena, and she feels this irrational wave of horror for having contributed to the bitch's death. She doesn't dare imagine how much worse it must be for Damon, who has loved and longed to see Katherine again for more than a century, just to have her obsessing over his brother and his human girlfriend once she entered his life again.

"You aren't healing very fast," she comments softly, crawling in front of him to examine better the wounds on his chest.

The truth is that he doesn't look like he is healing at all.

"I bled a lot"- he hisses-"I need to feed."

She nods, although she can see plainly he doesn't expect her to offer him anything but a fast ride to the Salvatore's boarding house.

"Then you'll soon owe me a dinner."

She sighs, but the disbelief on his features, as she tugs her sleeve up to wave her bare wrist under his nose, pulls soon a genuine smile out of her.

"That's not ideal for you. It would make it more painful, and it would take longer to heal- "

"Well, not my neck either, my nerves are frayed enough for tonight."

Damon shrugs, biting the inside of his cheek. "Your shoulder will do fine."

"Okay"

Bonnie acquiesces, swallowing the knot in her throat, her back ramrod straight as she moves to sit cross-legged at his left.

Despite herself, she shivers when Damon's fingers brush her hair gently aside, baring her nape.

She fumbles her way through getting the first buttons of her shirt open, so he can pull the cloth enough to expose her shoulder entirely.

"No need to be jittery"- he murmurs in her ear, nuzzling his nose in the crook of her neck and inhaling her scent deeply- "I'll take care of you and this will go over so much better if you're relaxed."

It doesn't sound like the vampire is talking about biting at all, and that makes her flush even more intensely, although she truly should know better.

His cold lips kiss a reverent path from the spot behind her ear to the space between her shoulder blades and her flesh melts like butter in response, her eyelids fluttering closed.

Bonnie jumps when his fangs nip experimentally at her warm skin, whimpers when they sink in. Her mind floats in a bright white nothing for awhile, but then the pain recedes and all that remains is the odd sensation of Damon's mouth suckling on her gently but greedily, like he's a newborn child and she is the one giving life to him with every mouthful he takes.

Her blood throbs through her body and flows into his in steady, regular sips: it builds up a peculiar sense of connection between them, and suddenly she feels almost…protective, pleased that he needs her so much now.

She starts feeling lightheaded, and she notices she can't feel the fingers that were clutching closed the ends of her half-unbuttoned shirt anymore.

"Stop, please"- she drawls in a drowsy, faint voice- "I'm starting to get numb."

The witch feels the vampire jerking behind her and a sharp hit of unexpected pain after, his fangs are gone and his tongue is soothing the area of his bite.

Sleepy and weak, Bonnie barely even realizes his hands are reaching around her, buttoning her shirt swiftly before he scoops her up in his arms.

"Stay awake. You'll be good as new once I get some food into you. "

"You _do_ owe dinner," she repeats lethargically, pressing her cheek against his chest. He feels warmer and she decides he doesn't smell half-bad.

Sooner than she would think possible Bonnie is in her kitchen, standing by Damon as he prepares pasta.

"Do you know of much of a cliché it is, the Italian boy who knows how to cook spaghetti?"

"Shut up"- he grumbles, setting her steaming, inviting plate before her-"I am not Italian and clichés are acceptable when used to get delectable little birds like yourself to spread- "

"Thank you for breaking the illusion that you were civilized. It was beginning to creep me out "

She grins and attacks her dinner with gusto, glad he is eating with her because she really, really didn't feel like being alone tonight.

"It's good."

"Don't sound so surprised. I can be civilized if I want to be. "

He sounds like a sulking little boy when he gets defensive after real or imaginary criticisms: Bonnie discovers it's dangerously close to becoming endearing.

"Yeah, you can."

Damon volunteers to spend the night in the Bennett house instead of bringing her over to Elena's, so they can both get some rest before they have to hand out excuses and explanations right, left and center.

She hands him some of her father 's clothes and offers her father's bedroom and there's a disturbing domesticity about the whole process.

Bonnie wakes up early the morning after, her heart in her throat, her legs eager to swing out of bed. Her senses are befuddled and reaching out for something she can't see and she doesn't know why.

Then she remembers and walks down, half-expecting to find her protector gone.

Damon is in her kitchen, by the stove, frying the bacon whose smell is flavoring the room, scrambling some eggs while the coffee gets done.

He doesn't turn toward her, although he must have sensed her arrival.

"This is very surreal," she says, suddenly self-conscious of her bedhead and morning breath, pulling her robe tighter around herself.

Which is stupid, she will reprimand. What does she care if a homicidal vampire sees her looking like a mess?

"Good morning to you, too."

Damon greets her with that irritating, occasionally sexy smirk.

"Good morning."

She echoes, feeling an odd, soothing warmth filling her up slowly. For once, she doesn't mind that her father is out of town, although she can hardly recall the last time he waited around to have breakfast with her, even when he wasn't physically away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story had an official soundtrack I listen on while elaborating my updates : 
> 
> Hazy by Rosi Golan
> 
> A Lonely Septemberby Plain White Ts (most especially)
> 
> Fight for all wrong reasons by Nickelback
> 
> I'd Come For You by Nickelback
> 
> Collide by Howie Day


	8. Chapter 8

**XIII**

Being a witch and fighting alongside your friends to keep an ancient vampire master from invading your hometown doesn't mean you'll be spared from those wonderful trials of adolescent angst.

Bonnie learns this simple truth after two hours of arguing back and forth with her dad about her future, and what she will do with it now that her grades are dropping. She is not exactly happy about her latest academic results, but it's not like she can actually explain to her dad all the reasons why schoolwork, since Grams died, has been at the bottom of her priority list.

She ends up promising and apologizing and reassuring that failing classes is not her highest aspiration either, and she has almost convinced her father of her good intentions… before the 'college issue' comes up.

The matter is, every ambition Bonnie used to cultivate before finding out she was a witch feels extraneous and farfetched today. She is so deeply immersed in occultism these days that she can't imagine her future the way she did before. The one thing that feels true and passion-worthy right here and now is her magic: it keeps her standing while everything else in her world spins and changes, it keeps her true to herself in her darkest hours.

Obviously, her father can't ever know anything about this and it only adds to the growing rift between them. He says he doesn't know her anymore and he certainly doesn't understand why she would 'throw her intelligence away' to follow in her grandmother's footsteps.

Bonnie leaves after a window _accidentally_ cracks to pieces, without slamming the door behind her, without any dramatic last words, without truly knowing where she will go next.

She mostly drives around pointlessly until her temper has cooled and disappointment has overtaken the anger.

This is when she realizes the one person with whom she wants to talk about her horrible evening is Stefan. If there's someone who would understand, really understand the sense of isolation and distance she has been fending off for so long, it's him. He knows firsthand what it means, to feel and be different from everyone else.

She inwardly cringes when it's Damon, not his younger brother, opening the door to her. Things with Damon are always complicated and ambiguous and the last thing she needs at the moment is more uncertainty.

Something indefinable flashes through his pale eyes as he looks up and down her, like he's imprinting the very image of her on his threshold into his mind. "Little Witch, it's always a pleasure. "

The vampire smirks and for some reason, it bothers her that he's perpetually attaching those arbitrary etiquettes of his onto everyone he meets. It's, she believes, just another way to diminish other people in his mind and let them know.

"I have a name, you know. It wouldn't burn you if you used it, unlike certain incantations I've learnt."

Damon' gaze brightens like she just praised him.

"You keep threatening me with fire and flames at each chance you get. I'm starting to think it's either a metaphor for something else entirely, or one of your fetishes. I hope for the latter, it would make for some very interesting foreplay."

She rolls her eyes in exasperation.

"You are _disgusting_ , and I'm looking for your brother. "

"Well, you are _disgustingly_ cranky and my _brother_ is checking the perimeter with Alaric."

"Oh."

She doesn't really know what to say after that, because going back home doesn't feel like a particularly good idea yet and there's no saying when Alaric and Stefan will be done, if they are checking for vampire nests on Mystic Falls' outskirts.

"Do you mind if I go through your family library by myself then?"

Bonnie asks at last, relieved she has at least one excuse to not look like a complete fool.

Her interlocutor stands aside and welcomes her in with a mock bow."Not at all."

"Were you looking for something in particular?" He asks, his hand on the small of her back while he guides her inside and toward a destination she already knows quite well. It sounds like a casual, mildly curious inquiry but it's probably all about Damon fishing for the real reason she wanted to see Stefan. Damon has the annoying penchant to see too much, at the worst possible moment.

"No, I'm just bored and in the mood for a good read." She half-lies as he opens the library's door to her.

"You look more melancholy than bored," the vampire comments a bit later with apparent idleness, his back turned to her while he occupies himself with a whiskey-filled decanter and two glasses. She stops examining the titles of every tome on the shelf in front of her to focus her attention on him, frowning and then looking back to the books.

The dark-haired witch refuses to acknowledge him verbally until he hands a glass to her, his expression perfectly amiable like he is any sociable host. "It does wonders for lifting the spirit, especially if you down it at once."

"I think I'll stick with a good book."

"Then you won't find it among my father's collection. Unless being bored to tears is your brand of release."

Despite herself and her bad disposition toward everyone and everything, she chuckles at both his wisecrack and the deliberately pompous tone he uses to deliver it. "You should find yourself another drinking buddy. I'm not exactly the ideal candidate."

"Oh, don't put yourself down like that. I promise you've done perfectly well so far."

Now she thinks about it, it's impressive just how many drinks they have shared on his instigation."Are you trying to corrupt me, Homicidal Vampire?"

He smiles fondly at the nickname and it makes him look younger, affable.

"Don't disappoint me, little Glinda. Let's have a toast."

She doesn't really understand or care, which is why she reacts by rolling her eyes and taking the glass out of his hands. "What are we toasting to?"

Damon shrugs like it doesn't matter. "You decide."

"Hm, what about my dropping grades and sketchy college prospects?"

"That's why you are all gloomy and snappish?"- he shakes his head in blatant disappointment- "Shame on you, sweetheart. Don't you know that education is for those poor fools who can't magic anything they want into their lap?"

Smirking a little as she refills her glass under his approving gaze, Bonnie can't resist provoking him a bit: "Or compelling anyone to give them anything?"

"You get my drift," he nods eagerly, sinking into his armchair, which happens to be right beside her seat.

Bonnie sips her whiskey, enjoying the euphoric heat already rushing to her head and untwisting all complications into their far simpler basics. "Go explain that to my dad. "

"I take it he doesn't know what you are?"

"Dad is a very no-nonsense, practically-oriented type of person. If I told him _and_ showed him that I practice witchcraft, he would be hell-bent on forcing me to quit. He already thought Grams _acted_ batty. Can you imagine if he knew she died in the backlash of a spell? I would never know another day of peace."

She shudders at the idea alone.

Damon snorts, apparently annoyed."It's not the spell that killed your _grandma_. It's old age and strain."

"Yeah, _magical_ strain"-Bonnie stresses, pissed that her happy-buzz bubble is already cracking under the pressure of ugly memories- "but let's not open that can of worms, okay? "

"Whatever."

Damon gulps down the remaining liquid in an oddly inelegant gesture, his features fighting not to show some kind of conflict. Watching him makes the witch feels unusually benevolent. And fuzzy.

Perhaps that is the whiskey's fault. She is definitely verging on tipsy now, a pleasant lightness settling around her like a warm blanket, spurring her to be chatty. "It's a paradox. I am a seer, but when it comes to my future, all I see is a wide, nebulous space. "

He pats her shoulder companionably, shaking off her concerns with barely a sliver of condescension. "You are a growing girl. It's normal."

"Is it?" – she continues, swirling her third drink lazily – "I used to be invested in so many interests that don't mean anything anymore to me. But when I do magic I feel so free, whole…. I never felt like that about anything before. "

"Ordinary human lives are boring. Power never is. How can you compare them?"

His voice has grown lower, insinuating, way too close to her ear. She finds the presence of mind to be surprised that his fingers are stroking her hair slowly. It feels good, and she leans into his touch instinctively, a satisfied smile forming on her lips.

"You are such a douchebag." –she half-moans, resigned- "You got me wasted on purpose, didn't you? Are you planning to take advantage of me?"

Fingertips trace lazy patterns over her collarbone and follow the outline of her shoulder.

"You know what you're doing"- he replies, defensive and slightly offended, then he brushes her locks aside to expose to his lips the curve of her neck – "and I don't hear you saying no."

"I should," Bonnie sighs, regretful. His palms keep sliding up and down her arms, summoning sensations she has warned herself against, and his lips are exploring every inch of skin he can reach, reminding her of that night she had allowed him to feed on her.

But it feels even better, without the anxiety or the worry to hinder her enjoyment.

His mouth sucking on her throat, his tongue tasting the sensitive spot behind her earlobe, his breath on her flesh, her his fingers twisting in her hair, his arm around her…it's intoxicating.

It's also something they have shared before and nowhere close to enough, anymore. His nose nuzzles the hollow between her neck and her shoulder, breathing her in deeply.

"Your scent is addictive"- the vampire murmurs, almost dreamily, before hiding his visage in her soft curls- "I might do this all the day long. "

Bonnie giggles, rather uncertain whether she is drunker on the alcohol or the vampire harassing her."I think you're less disturbing when you're threatening my life."

"Stop being so sassy. It's not attractive." He admonishes, voice dark with warning, his nails digging into her collarbone painfully.

 _You are only a grumpy little boy_ – she wants to snap, but he's fisting her hair and pulling her up forcefully and all that crawls out of her mouth is a strangled gasp.

He turns her around roughly so they are standing face to face and she can see his unnaturally ink-black eyes, the bluish network of engorged veins around them, his lips closed in a tight line but trembling like they are about to break into an animalistic snarl. It should scare her, but it doesn't.

Bonnie looks on, mesmerized, as his visage shifts repeatedly from vampire to human, again and again until humanity wins over the feral instincts and he's, once more, the blue-eyed Lucifer that teases her and confuses her senses.

He touches her gentler now, drawing her close firmly but with a surprising prudence, combing her mussed strands away from her face with a soothing carefulness. His gaze is mournful, brimming with all the words he can't bring himself to say, the agony of wanting something so very badly and not knowing how to obtain it.

It awakens a bittersweet restlessness inside her, akin to a desire to wrap her arms around him and allow him to have anything he needs. _Her blood, her body, her heart. Anything._

But it's such a risky caprice to indulge in, with him. She already trusts a lot more than she should.

"We have many sound reasons not to do this to ourselves," the witch whispers shakily.

"Too many of those reasons are flesh and bone people. It doesn't need to be that complicated."

He mocks, impatient and frustrated. Ironically, the very net that has brought them together would have -in her eyes, at least- always kept them apart. Matt, Elena, Stefan, Caroline…he has broken each one of them in different ways and it drives him to the wall, to know they all have a better claim on her than he has.

Damon cups her face in his hands, caressing her warm cheekbones with his thumbs and striving to memorize how her eyelids just fluttered closed to his touch.

"It doesn't?" she murmurs, unable to think properly while a thumb is tracing the outline of her bottom lip. She is so tired of everything being complicated. She wishes she could give in.

 _He mind-rapes people on a daily basis._ \- her conscience reminds her- _He took Vicky away from Matt. He enjoys inflicting pain on Stefan. He is the king of psychological warfare and he's not even ashamed of how he has treated Caroline. Will you just dismiss it?_ _Because of a few occasions when you saw him not being a monster?_

"We can just take what we want, no questions asked, no consequence. "

Bonnie feels her throat tighten at the rare intensity reflected on his face, the hypnotic seriousness of his voice. Eyes the startling, vibrant color of the Pacific are staring down at her, and for a moment she's shocked at the sharp contrast with a memory not so deeply buried. She has looked into those eyes when they were cold like the frozen Atlantic, and she has already felt his hands on her face, touching her softly only to better convey a threat. He looked very, very cruel then, merciless even.

He doesn't look cruel right now. He only looks passionate, beautiful, a man.

 _It can't be enough. Not to respect him, not to care about him. How can you give part of yourself up to someone you don't respect?_ \- the witch wants to hang onto that conviction and twist free of him, but then he lifts her chin so their lips can meet and she can't remember anymore.

It's nothing like the last time Damon had kissed her. There's no aggression, no fury, no coercion: his mouth just caresses hers teasingly, and his arms don't force her to stay put but surround her with a strange care, like she is something easily broken and all the more precious for it. Damon is kissing her like it's both a promise and an offering.

Trembling, she leans into the kiss and then hesitatingly responds to it, her eyes closing on their own accord.

He tastes of Death and of Night and of Wilderness, whiskey and manliness.

Something golden unfurls inside her as she relaxes into it, gratified by the feeling of his hands roaming up and down her back. Bonnie puts hers on his hips, pulling him closer before mirroring his caresses.

Being touched by him feels good, but touching him in return feels downright _natural_ and Bonnie finds herself praying to Hekate, the Witches' Goddess, - _Please, please let this_ _ **not**_ _be love._

She tucks her hand under his shirt regardless, exploring his lower back. His skin feels pleasantly cool and smooth and she finds she can't stop reaching for more.

Damon groans into her, pulling her backward while they deepen the kiss, until her back hits the table and he can hoist her up, his palms greedily cupping her ass before she is sitting on hard wood. All tenderness has given away to hunger, every possibility of resistance is forgotten.

Bonnie clings to him, wrapping her legs around his waist while the vampire dips his head lower and nibbles on her shoulder, his fingers running all over her bare stomach. Leaning back and breathing out harshly, she has no idea of when her shirt got completely unbuttoned and she doesn't care, either.

The sensation of his tongue sliding down, from her collarbone to the cleft between her breasts, empties her of every coherent thought and fills her with such a blazing, throbbing need that she can barely contain it.

She opens her eyes to the ceiling only to see more than a few books floating high over her head.

"Oh," the witch gasps, shaken out of her lust-filled trance, and the guilty objects all fall down suddenly, colliding with the floor in a loud crash that has Damon flinching, startled.

The two look at the mess around them in a certain wonder, then focus on each other with what might nearly become awkwardness.

"You are quite the powerful little thing." He drawls appreciatively, his nails skimming over her legs.

Licking her dry lips, she chooses to stay quiet and just looks at him from behind lowered eyelids. To be honest, her recent display makes her feel like a freak. His touch creeps higher, lingering in snail-paced circles over her inner thigh and her hips rise just a bit in response, her gaze a liquid brown-green magnet that he finds too enthralling to resist.

Damon savors intently the very sight of her: his little witch looks as wild and raw as that night he had spied on her in the woods, but also tense and easily frightened. His lips graze her temple, her cheek, her forehead before finding their way back to hers again.

"I want to do something for you." He all but purrs against her mouth after a deep, gut-stirring kiss. Her gaze is unfocused and her breath is broken in short endearing puffs of air as he kneels down between her parted legs. Her heartbeat speeds up fiercely as she looks down at him, jitters and anticipation chasing each other across her expression.

 _Just like a scared, helpless little bird_ – he thinks, remembering when he and Stefan were children. They used to find young sparrows or robins fallen out of their nests, unable to escape when he and his brother would capture them and cup them in their hands. Damon remembers how fragile and small those creatures felt in his hold, how fast their tiny heart would beat, so wild that he could feel the erratic pulsation against his skin and fear that the bird would die of sheer terror.

"My Little Bird, " the vampire utters against her stomach, brushing his lips on the soft expanse of brown, supple skin. Bonnie quivers as his tongue trails lingering circles around her bellybutton, fractures his name in stuttering syllables when it delves inside.

He feels the beast roaring inside him, experiences a violent desire to cut to the chase and bury himself inside her in every way possible. Resisting is nearly impossible, with those breathy, soft, wanton sounds she is making and the way her inviting scent surrounds him, taunting him with what he cannot have. _Yet._

Because even with lust raging through his veins at full volume, Damon is perfectly aware that he needs to play his cards right. Taking everything he needs from Bonnie _now_ would mean being at a grave disadvantage once the witch is fully sober and in defense mode.

He may not be all together certain of what he wants from her, but it sure as hell isn't one glorious bout of sex, ruined by endless recriminations of how he has taken advantage of her.

For some undefined reason, it feels extremely important to him not spook Bonnie by rushing too much. He wants - he _needs_ \- to reel her in bit by bit and savor every minor victory along the way.

He pushes her knees wider apart to get more room, and when he dips his head down towards her wet folds, she flinches, her small body tightening at once in nervous tension.

Damon caresses her thighs to calm her, but can't silence the self-satisfied humming that vibrates across his throat at the evidence of her panic. He is still a predator, and there is, deep underneath the surface of him, a surprising jolt of _guilt_ for partly enjoying her distress.

"You don't need to be scared" - he tries to amend, summoning his most reassuring tone- I'll make sure you won't regret it."

His choice of words vaguely disturbs him –It is not as strictly sexual as it sounded in his head- but it works. Bonnie finally relaxes under his touch, allowing him to pull her underwear down, bunched around one ankle, and he keeps the 'innocent' caressing up for another excruciatingly long awhile, merely for _her_ benefit. Although it takes considerable restraint: he can smell her arousal and knowing she is so warm and ready _for him_ makes his blood boil.

It truly amazes him that this woman can get him so hot and yet so _fucking_ patient, when she is so inexperienced and he is by nature so absolutely, greedily selfish.

Eventually he lowers his head to taste her, parting her lips with his tongue softly, and the most enticing sound falls from her mouth, in between a cry and a whimper, while he lingers there, simply basking in the flavour of her essence.

It gives him a heady, exhilarating feeling unlike anything else he has ever experienced during sex. _Who knew you could be that high on bringing pleasure to someone else whilst withholding your own?_

Fascinated with this utterly new concept, he decides to return to old school basics, traces the alphabet with the tip of his tongue on her nub, overjoyed when she wriggles against him and breathes shakily.

He barely reaches the 'H' and his usually self-contained little witch is clutching at his hair and panting like there's no tomorrow. 'K' gets out of her a drawn-out, lust-embedded moan that has his eyes blacken and his fangs clatter together.

Damon freezes, every muscle painfully tense from the ferocious desire to attack, but then her small hands pull him tighter to her sex, her hips buckling in an instinctive, imprudent movement. Miraculously, that's all he needs to push his cravings aside and be with her again.

Yet he draws back, allows his canines to slide along her thigh as he abruptly pushes two fingers inside her wet heat, stretching and retreating a little just to drive deeper, in rhythmic motions.

Bonnie abruptly lets go of his head, preferring to grip the table's edge to maintain a semblance of balance.

She may have had sex before, but it was just a one-time deal, quite awkward and uncomfortable and ... _nothing like this._

Books keep falling from shelves and she is pretty sure a few things around her are levitating, but it's really, really hard to concentrate on that.

Losing control feels good, incredibly good with Damon's fingers stroking her inside, just the way she craves, just the way to make her toes curl in pleasure. It feels like every stroke is winding a coil inside her, tighter and tighter until she is drowning into a fiery, alien heat.

She is intensely aware of his mouth sucking on her thigh and it doesn't surprise her when his teeth sink into her flesh, right as his fingers curl and hit _that_ perfect spot. "Yes," Bonnie groans, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, her walls clamping and fluttering around him as she begins to shake uncontrollably.

A startling tide of passion rises inside her, sweeping her violently up and under, dragging her down, toward the void. Suddenly, she is over the invisible edge, her hips are bucking and a loud, raw sound she has never made in her life is scratching its way out of her throat as she tightens like a vice around his hand.

He drinks every beautiful sensation of hers straight from her blood, moaning into her caramel skin when her orgasm races across his system and pulls him asunder right along with her.

Damon tastes every bit of her pleasure, feels it filling his head completely until her release has become his release and he is drowning into the very presence of her.

When she has calmed down and he senses the tang of her satisfaction blending in with some pleasant soreness, he is reluctant to part himself from her. He slides his fingers out her body before withdrawing his fangs, pops his fingers into his mouth to enjoy the mixed flavor of her wetness and her blood.

Bonnie blinks down at him in a sort of awed daze, considering it's a surprisingly erotic gesture. Bonelessly relaxed and pretty much speechless, that's what Damon Salvatore has reduced her to.

"Wow."

"Wow is right," he repeats, licking his lips and sparing a cursory glance to the chaos surrounding them Moments like this, he's almost sorry he has killed Zach. Almost. "But I hope you know a spell to fix this disaster, because I'm no desperate housewife."


	9. Chapter 9

XIV

Bonnie doesn't understand Damon, or where the maddening, nonstop push and pull of their so-called relationship is heading.

She gets as far as accepting they have a connection, a nearly chemical reaction to each other's presence. She is aware of him in a way she is not aware of anything else. What does that mean? She has no clue at all.

She doesn't understand why he goes hot and cold all the time with her, whereas with Katherine and Elena he was relentless and consistent. Every single time he has touched her in desire he has backtracked to stalking from a safe distance afterwards. And that's particularly offensive, because it's three freaking days she can't get over how he made her feel that evening, with his face between her legs and his hands all over her, looking at her like she was beautiful.

Damon is well known for boasting over every smallest thing. He is just that much of a vain, arrogant, malicious dickhead.

Yet he won't breath a word of anything that's ever happened between them to Caroline or his brother or Elena. It's absolutely out of character and Bonnie doesn't understand why.

Why?

Sometimes she suspects he does it to keep her within his reach. Unless it's a secret, she can't let the idea of him go. Secrecy keeps her guessing when or how he might spit the truth out. It's pretty much clear that, once other people know, they will warn her and threaten him and she will be reminded once more of all the healthy reasons she should stay away from Damon.

They act antagonistic in public and it's not a front, yet when other people aren't around, they fit just so naturally. It doesn't help any that since they have confessed to killing Katherine, Stefan keeps pairing them together in vigilante-duty. He says he trusts Bonnie to 'contain' his brother, whatever that means.

"Sometimes I thought I could love him- Elena has told her, not so long ago- although that feeling I got around Damon was very different from how I feel for Stefan. I saw the loneliness and the need for passion in him and I wanted to assuage them so badly. But mostly, I think I was fascinated with my hold over him. There's something thrilling in having power on someone so unrestrained."

The way Bonnie feels toward Damon is very different. She doesn't feel that much compassion for his misfortunes, because she is deeply convinced that he is the one who chooses to bring them on himself. He has chosen to be alone, by chasing women who would never truly belong to him, by destroying everything and everyone else around him, by destroying himself for hatred or for love. Damon is Damon's worst enemy, ironically.

Yet, there's that wilderness about him, that primitive capacity for unreserved intensity …they call to the witch inside her. Damon mesmerizes her like storms and lightning used to when she was a child.

Inviting the vampire into her home might just be the worst decision she ever made: she has stopped counting the mornings she has awakened to find him towering above her bed, still like a statue, and he has taken to this awesome habit of visiting whenever he feels like, for however long he feels like.

Or at least, he behaved like that before she let him eat her out in his family library. That was three days ago and he has not tried to harass her once since then. She has not seen him since then, except for a few minutes yesterday night, when Alaric organized an impromptu reunion to discuss the possible location of Klaus's lair.

And now she has a crow perched on the tree before her bedroom window, spying on her, and she has no idea of how she is supposed to act.

They are not dating, so there's no reason Damon should call her after sexing her up a little. She doesn't want to date someone like him, anyway. That would be inconceivable.

The problem is that when she stops and actually wastes her energy thinking about it, it almost feels like they have been dating. They've made out more than once, after all. He has paid for her drinks, more than once. He took her out for a movie after that action. They had even had an accidental moonlight stroll in the woods. He has cooked pasta for her!

And that isn't even counting the times he fed on her. Bonnie is not even sure if the stupid murdering maniac wants her for food or sex! No wonder she is confused!

And this is why she is pretending to read Emily's old Grimoire like she hasn't noticed his presence at all. Moronic, narcissistic, temperamental, insensitive crow.

"What are you reading about?"

The jovial, giddy voice right in her ear has her jumping out of her skin with a sound, an embarrassing sound in between a gasp and a hiss.

Stupid, stupid vampire superspeed and unrepentant sadism!

Damon's hands reach for her hunched shoulders and are awarded with a jolt of static electricity.

"Easy there, little witch…"

"How the fuck did you get in?" She spits, getting up abruptly and shaking his touch off in anger.

"Your father has left the bathroom window open." He shrugs with a hint of mocking disapproval, but transparent amusement at her distress.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"You looked so stiff and stressed, I thought I would cheer you up."

"Gee, thanks."

Her sarcasm hardly dents the vampire's enthusiasm and he gives her one of those beaming, falsely innocent grins of his. "I haven't even begun."

In a smooth, quicksilver movement, his arms surround her waist and pull her flush against him as his head dips down and his lips brush the corner of her mouth.

Bonnie isn't so hypocritical as to fight it, but she waits until he is the one to tilt her chin up and properly initiate the kiss before giving in completely.

Their kiss is lazy, soft but increasingly eager: it makes her whole body to hum with delight.

"Smarmy jackass," she reproaches breathlessly, head falling backward as he molds her body tightly against his with possessive, greedy caresses. She feels like his hands are everywhere at once and she has no idea how that is possible.

Whoa, how has the mood warmed so fast?

"No biting," she warns, digging her nails into his shoulder when he kisses her neck sloppily, dragging his teeth along the smooth hollow and down across her collarbone, like he wants to cover as much ground as he can get away with.

"No more biting and more fucking," Damon acquiesces, squeezing her hips and guiding her toward her bed until the back of her knees hit the mattress.

Falling down into a sitting position, Bonnie pushes the vampire forcefully back, levering with her open palms on his chest.

"Not with my dad here and about."

How could she have forgotten? And most importantly how could he think she would agree to fuck him with her dad in the house!

Damon smirks, undeterred, and lies down beside her, stretching languidly on his side. His fingertips linger teasingly along the outline of her arm. "He won't bother us. I've put him to sleep. "

"You did what?"

His eyes roll upward in a theatrical show of annoyance at her indignation. "By simple Compulsion."

"Is that supposed to make it better? You can't treat my father like a…"

"-A helpless, hindering human?"

"Damon!" she seethes, her gaze brimming with fury.

"Bonnie!" he derides her in a small, whiny voice that gets on her nerves even more.

"You are such a dickhead!"

"You are the most uptight teenager ever."

Still, he leans over, half-covering her with his larger figure, and cups the back of her head to draw her lips back to his, unwilling to waste another moment with what he perceives as useless stalling. Bonnie squirms and fights at first, but when he rolls them over and entraps her under his weight, she moans into his mouth and grants him as much access he wants.

His attempts to get her naked are, nonetheless, less than successful.

Which gets him quite spectacularly angry, because every time his fingers manage to creep any higher than her belly under her shirt, she will shock him with tiny jolts of electricity. It hurts like hell but it's also a major turn on.

He wants to bite her all over her bare flesh, to mar her brown skin with superficial cuts from his fangs and lick the sweet blood oozing from her wounds…to bleed her dry while she drinks from him.

Someday, maybe (probably) he will. But not today.

It's still unfair that she is allowed to discard his shirt and claw at his naked back all she wants.

With a growl of frustration, Damon pulls at the cloth of her ankle-length skirt and reaches underneath. The bitch allows him to run his palms along her legs until he grazes her thighs. Then a stronger jolt has the vampire gritting his teeth and almost passing out from the pain.

Exploiting his momentary incapacitation, Bonnie twists a hand into his hair, pulling hard before rolling her hips and straddling him.

By the time she is on top of him, she doesn't even remember why she is so furious, she only knows she needs more of him.

Just looking down at Damon under her, livid with anger and lust, eyes black as coal, dangerous but helpless, his limbs nearly convulsing under her lighter weight, makes her feel very unlike herself. Stronger, wilder, braver. Better. Whole. Hungry.

It feels like the most natural thing in the world to unbutton his jeans and lower them so she can sink herself onto him. She just takes him boldly in her small, warm hand and guides him inside her, shakily pushing her underwear aside.

And when she meets his gaze again, the fierce, desperate want she sees reflected there is so terrifying she freezes, like the feeling of him halfway in is suddenly threatening.

Damon snarls, less than pleased with her abrupt halt, his fangs clattering together in an attempt to contain both his impatience and his appetite.

Bonnie breathes in deeply, letting the fear go, and lets herself slide down on him, enjoying the wave of unadulterated pleasure that comes with the slow movement.

"Bonnie," he grumbles, digging his fingers painfully into her hips, and hearing her name spoken so roughly sends a thrill of dark contentment throughout her.

This is so fucked up. I'm so fucked up- she thinks, throwing her head back in abandonment, moaning despite herself. But it's a pointless observation, because she already knows she can't and won't stop.

Not when she is already falling apart at the seams. For him.

His hips buck up and his grip on her waist becomes bruising, driving his cock deeper but not quite deep enough.

A fatigued gasp afterward, she's on her back again and Damon is bending one of her legs at an uncomfortable angle so he can fill her more completely, animated by a commanding desire to reach the very bottom of her.

Wrapped tightly around his body, Bonnie pants and writhes, her skin sweaty and feverishly warm, her gaze unfocused as he thrusts into her again and again. It's a blatant contrast to the unchanging, dry coolness of his skin but it doesn't bother him at all. If anything, it feels good. Being inside her, being covered with her scent and her perspiration…that's right to him, perfect even.

"Damon" she holds onto him like her life depends on it, crying his name out like a prayer more than once, until her voice breaks and all that's left are her sighs and groans of pleasure.

They move together frantically, with a jagged roughness that occasionally borders on brutality but it's infinitely more satisfying than finesse for both of them.

In the end, he is no more in charge then she is: they clutch at each other blindly, their quivering limbs anchoring them together, skin to skin, while the final release blazes through their senses and pulls them utterly, frighteningly undone.

They stay still, spent and entwined for a long time after, Damon's face hidden in her hair, Bonnie' s arms loose around him, listening to each other's breathing as it evens out.

When Damon summons the strength and the will to roll onto his back, disentangling from his very exhausted lover, it's like his brain can't function properly but he feels like the king of the universe.

"Impressive." He exhales, his tone oozing satiation.

"Indeed." Bonnie nods beside him, her lips curling up dreamily although her gaze refuses to let go of her ceiling.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More hotness ensues... please review if you like.

**XV**

On the surface, their morbid excuse for a relationship is no more than a random series of hook-ups.

That doesn't mean Bonnie and Damon have no rules. They have tons of them. Most of them unspoken, only two actually acknowledged and verbally agreed upon.

The first one is fairly expected: nobody knows, so nobody will butt in and no ulterior motives will have the chance to come into play.

The second one is that they will never owe each other anything. No demands, no expectations, no attempt to 'improve' each other according to their personal needs. They are only free to take from each other what's gratuitously offered. Free companionship, free sex, free protection. She won't demand that he grow up and be better only so she can feel less guilty about fucking a murderer, he won't try to manipulate her into something dark and twisted like himself, only to get a kick out of it.

There are times, when he passes her by and gives one of those secretive, telling glances or when she enters a room and spots him in a corner, that Bonnie feels this…giddy, low-burning feeling tugging at the very core of her. She ignores it, of course, because having a crush on Damon is not an option for so many sensible reasons. They have what they have and she tells herself it's a temporary reprieve from the mad chaos surrounding them: it will pass. It's enough to let her treasure their connection, the secret elation of his touch and mouth on her skin.

There are nights Damon watches over her while she sleeps, silently horrified at the purposeless fragility of her mortal life. He imagines that dark, soft skin wrinkling, that supple flesh decaying, that pretty visage aging beyond repair: it feels like an unbearable violation to him.

Those moments, he is seriously tempted to sire her before it's too late. She might hate him for a while but eventually he would get her back. He might make sure that she has nobody else to turn to, or he might spirit her away on some secluded getaway until she saw what a gift immortality could be.

Then he realizes he doesn't want her to change in any way. He doesn't want to see her innocence and compassion swept away by predatory instincts. That train of thought always confuses him greatly, so he _always_ dismisses it at once and pretends he never considered it.

He is around her house constantly: to piss her off, to protect her from Klaus's minions, to help her train with offensive spells, to give all the lust free rein. They bicker, they discuss magic, they watch TV on her couch when they aren't making out on it.

He complains or lectures endlessly about inane things she doesn't care about at all, she will roll her eyes at him in disdain before quipping something like _"God, you love hearing yourself talk!"_ or _"You need serious therapy. Or you would, if I wasn't sure you would eat the shrink the moment he hits all the right questions."_

Then she usually sways boldly up to him, stands on her tiptoes and brushes her lips against his, twining her hands around his neck and slipping her fingers through his hair.

He will _allow_ her to shut him up that way because he gets to hold her tightly, to slide his hands under her shirt and rake his fingernails on the small of her back. But sincerely? He only hates that she so rarely kisses him first.

Most of their time together, Bonnie will instigate him to initiate it, never pretending she doesn't want it or that she doesn't know where all their arguments and teasing eventually lead, but the first step toward sex is nearly always up to him.

Damon shouldn't mind playing the instigator. That's a role he always favored and excelled in. Yet, with his witch…it bothers him that she is not as comfortable as she pretends to be with their 'arrangement.' It unnerves him to think she might be a little ashamed of being so… biblically well-acquainted with him.

So sometimes he gets a little rough, on purpose, marking her soft skin with harsh teeth and nails. To remind her she is not that much of a good girl, it doesn't matter how many others see her that way. He won't let her forget _he_ knows better. That _he_ knows _her_ better.

"I made you a CD."

Damon waves the mentioned object under her nose proudly and Bonnie smirks at the mischievous glint in his cerulean eyes. She knows there has to be something underneath the apparently sweet gesture. _This_ Salvatore doesn't _do_ romantic. Not like this at least, and certainly not for her.

"Being around us poor, pathetic high-schoolers is getting to you, Homicidal Vampire."

"Ah!" he snorts, amused, and rolls his eyes before doing that creepy-super-speed-thing that gets him straight to her hi-fi.

"There are a few songs it would be simply a shame to _not_ fuck you to, regardless of your appalling taste in music."

"I feel insulted." The witch replies, sounding anything but. To tell the truth, she is a bit intrigued at the idea of Damon fantasizing about fucking her to a theme song.

She doesn't recognize the softly haunting melody as it rises into the air, but when familiarity sets in, she smiles.

' _Disarm you with a smile  
And cut you like you want me to  
Cut that little child  
Inside of me and such a part of you  
Ooh, the years burn'_

"You get hot for Smashing Pumpkins? How appropriate."

Damon grins and a flashing moment after he is at her side, lunging for her. "Nah, but I would get hot for you screaming my name over their best classic."

Only his voice could make such an asinine comment sound like a promise of perdition. Bonnie shocks herself by letting him grope her from behind and sucking on her earlobe without serving even a last ironic remark.

' _I used to be a little boy  
So old in my shoes  
And what I choose is my choice  
What's a boy supposed to do?  
The killer in me is the killer in you  
My love  
I send this smile over to you' _

She closes her eyes and leans into his chest, enjoying his hands all over her body even while she refuses to take an active role. She can't explain why, but sometimes she enjoys making it look like she is doing him a favor by giving in. Damon calls it 'being a cock-tease', but Bonnie prefers considering it her way to take him down a peg. After all, he usually achieves whatever he wants so easily that he deserves to work hard for something once in awhile.

Not to mention how much she loves frustrating him, feeling him all focused and tense over pleasing her. Deep down, she acknowledges this is her one trick to deny his growing hold on her. It would be insane, to allow him to see how easily he truly affects her. Or worse, how close she is coming to accepting his most horrible flaws.

So when he coaxes her down, her back on her mattress, her spread thighs half-off the bed, she holds onto the music and doesn't open her eyes at all. Even if his fingers are smoothing out her hair so gently, draping her locks in a dark halo around her head, and she 's dying to know the expression on his face. She imagines it is intense, the look of an artist who adds a cherished, finishing stroke to his last painting.

' _Disarm you with a smile  
And leave you like they left me here  
To wither in denial  
The bitterness of one who's left alone  
Ooh, the years burn  
Ooh, the years burn, burn, burn'_

Damon undresses her slowly, completely lavishing with attention every inch of skin that he bares. In this game, his nips are always playful and his caresses always worshipful.

This is as close as they get to making love and it constantly brings her to whimpering 'please'-s and 'yes'-s like pride and dignity are merely words.

"Come on, Little Bird- say my name." he orders, gripping her waist and raising her hips off the mattress so the tip of his cock is brushing her opening, sending a wave of arousal through her.

A smooth, powerful stroke and he is inside her, ramming in and out of her heat with practiced ease.

It feels amazing, to be fisting her sheets and looking up into his burning gaze, and so she gives him all he wants, intercalating wanton moans of his name and broken sighs and crude sounds.

Damon pinches her clit, twists it roughly between his thumb and forefinger, presses down in circular motions until she is arching off the bed and glowing with lust.

To him, she is unbearably beautiful like that - radiant, even- and every smallest shift of her expression when she is so close to orgasm fascinates him, morbidly and irresistibly.

It doesn't matter how many times he sheaths himself inside her, he will never get used to how incredible it feels. The way her hot slick walls flutter and squeeze him so tight drives him nearly insane each and every single time. It's too good.

Probably too good to last, but he wants what he wants and he will reach out to grasp all he can get.

"Don't think I don't know what you are doing with Bonnie. I've been keeping quiet because the situation is hectic enough as it is, for now, but you are dead wrong if you hope I will let her become the next Bree. "

Stefan approaches the topic on a night Damon swaggers home reeking of sex and Bonnie, a worrying skip to his step.

Stefan expects his brother to respond with a long face meant to both mock and express utter indifference, but Damon's expression goes very still instead, icy eyes narrowing more coldly than usual on his own.

"That must be the part where I stutter and shiver in my Armani jacket, scared shitless from your frighteningly large and brooding forehead."

Even Damon's voice is cool, not as condescending as it might be. Stefan takes it as the second signal of alarm, because the first reaction his brother usually employs to divert anyone's interest in his affairs is relentless sarcasm.

Perhaps there's more to the recent tryst between Damon and Bonnie than he has considered at first outlook.

For his part, Damon is rather irritated by the sudden interference. Stefan wasn't so saintly and prompt when it came to defending Caroline Forbes from him, so there's no reason to change attitude now.

"I'm serious. Bonnie is my friend. She won't be the next witch you break to forget a loss."

The older vampire snorts without any amusement.

"Please, are you listening to yourself? This is not a crossover between Buffy and Cruel Intentions, and _my_ little witch is very different from poor, clingy, pathetic Bree."

"Bree was strong before your mind-games fucked her up."

"Bree was full of herself and too enamored with her self-delusions to see the truth I was spitting in her face. If that's strong for you… well, it actually explains most of your lifestyle choices."

"Damon-"

"I suggest you take the hint and drop this conversation while your tongue is still attached to your mouth, brother. "

"No."

For some reason, Stefan's ready and firm refusal spikes Damon's irritation to blinding anger with a swiftness of unprecedented levels. Fury literally blinds him for a few seconds and before both vampires fully realize what is happening, Stefan's back is against the wall and Damon's arm is across his throat, cutting off painfully a breath he no longer needs, fortunately.

"Bonnie is not yours to protect. She is mine and I'll do whatever I fancy to her. Without your interference and with your silent consent. Or else. Are we clear? "

Damon squeezes his brother harder, punishing him for his failure to answer right away. Then he notices that Stefan has no way to move, let alone talk in his current position, and he drops the younger vampire, watching him collapse on the ground with something akin to surprise.

How had he gotten so carried away?

Shaking off the panicky feeling prodding at his chest, he covers the hesitation with his habitual bravado.

"I trust we have an understanding, don't we?"

With a flamboyant smirk and an unconcerned sprint to his gait, Damon turns his back on his brother and leaves. Again.

Rubbing his sore throat, Stefan gives in to a hesitant smile. Perhaps it's wrong to read too much into this recent confrontation, but there was something very much like fear in Damon's eyes tonight, as he took in the magnitude of his response.

Maybe, just maybe, Bonnie Bennett isn't set up to become the next target of Damon's bitterness and disappointment with life. Maybe she is not a convenient rebound or revenge. Maybe _Elena_ was the rebound and now Damon has another shot at the _real thing_.

Maybe…there is hope.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darkness, sex and reluctant fluff.

**XVI**

Bonnie feels that Damon is different lately, like there's something constantly distracting him. He is perpetually on the edge between playing the standoffish jackass and cornering her somewhere he can murmur the filthiest, hottest endearments to her ear.

She doesn't question him openly because he's Damon Salvatore and being a temperamental bastard is his trademark. Besides, each and every time she dares to do as much as comment on his mood swings, he _mocks_ her.

The witch constantly reminds herself that it's useless to play therapist to the likes of him.

She will never understand him, that is something she accepted as fact a long time ago.

Hell, she doesn't even understand how he can be so turned on after he has seen her setting a bunch of Klaus's minions on fire.

Yet his eyes are flashing from surprised blue to hungry black and just like _that_ , she is pressed between a tree trunk and his muscled, trembling-with-tension body.

And she is sweaty, dirty with cinder and pretty sure she stinks of charred meat, but his hips grind against hers and Bonnie has never felt sexier. Or more alive.

She is dancing in a dark, infinite space, the heavy beat of an old indie rock ballad reverberating through the air, and all that's covering her clammy, hyper-aware body is a blood-red sundress. Her feet are bare as they slap the hard, cold floor and there's a feeling of languid arousal spreading into her blood.

She is all alone yet she feels a presence all around her, permeating every corner of this pitch black, shapeless darkness. Nothing quite makes sense. Slightly disturbed or not, she plays along with the charade and keeps dancing until she feels like every inch of her skin is on fire, thousands of bold ghost fingers creeping under her dress and crawling over every hidden curve.

Bonnie snaps, pushes the inappropriate touches away at once, enveloping herself in a cocoon of white, warm light. "You are twisted." She states neutrally, waiting.

A minute or two of absolute silence elapses before Damon's figure cuts the darkness and the dream-reality shatters into a more pleasant setting. Damon's very bedroom, unsurprisingly.

"You are getting better at detecting me," he boasts, like it's all thanks to him.

 _Rat bastard._ Bonnie thinks, rubbing her arms self-consciously.

"When I asked you to teach me to shield my dreams, I didn't mean you could transform them into a non-stop-porn-channel!"

"Now Bonnie, let's not be ungrateful. I'm trying to motivate you, here. I'm being _subtle_. Klaus is way more expert than I am at mind-control. You need to be appropriately _schooled_. "

Just the way his lips go about pronouncing that last word makes it sound filthy.

"You are a pig." Bonnie hisses, and if looks could maim, he would be in shreds already. Obviously, Damon takes it as encouragement to be even more of a cocky ass.

His eyes crinkle humorlessly and his smirk grows brazenly predatory: "No, apparently I'm the vampire who twists your dreams into reality."

The witch snorts, holding her chin high in a show of untamed pride. "You were manipulating my perceptions and sensations. Any physical response I experienced, it was all your doing."

"I know"-suddenly, he is gone, only to materialize again behind her, his lips on her nape - "Being in control is the best part."

Bonnie smiles slightly before fading out of his arms and reappearing seated at the center of his bed. "You _were_ in control. Let's not forget the past tense. "

The trick is always the same- he will sneak into her mind whenever her guard is low, messing up her dreams and staying hidden until she will recognize his presence in the background. Then it's all fair game and she can either propel him out or fight fire with fire. It's starting to scare her, how much she is learning to enjoy the second option.

She never used to be this competitive, confident, fierce person.

She never used to gasp in delight when Damon pinned her down, like he's doing right now.

"I've always wondered how dream-fucking would feel if the other party was self-aware, too."

Her nails claw at his shoulder and ass, drawing blood. Within her head, she can hurt him as easily as he can hurt her.

"Let's find out." Bonnie whispers, grinds harder against him, nips at his lips.

Some violent foreplay later, she awakens panting, frustrated as hell because there is certain 'business' you can't finish while sleeping.

But it doesn't matter because Damon is there, kneeled beside her, his rapacious hands already reaching for her nightgown before she kisses him harshly.

**XVII**

He keeps getting this weird feeling whenever he is near to her: it proclaims the witch as his own, and not the same way a piece of human cattle or an elegant pair of shoes might be. Damon has always been possessive of his things and of his prey, but this is something altogether different - he feels that Bonnie belongs to him as much as his powers, his fangs, his past, his proclivity for revenge and scheming do.

And this, he _knows_ , is fucking stupid.

He shouldn't care that she is spending so much time with Matt Donovan since the blonde guy and his even blonder surrogate of a girlfriend have broken up, because that is how Bonnie is –a disgustingly good friend who would care about the humiliation of a jock whose personal cheerleader has been cheating with his werewolf of a best friend- even when there's a war between vampire clans exploding around her.

The way Bonnie reacts to Matt's presence has never been sexual. Damon has, in theory, virtually no reason to feel …bereft? Neglected?

It's him Bonnie shares her bed with, so who cares if she wastes her time playing the emotional clutch to a pathetic little human boy?

"Damon, are you jealous?" she asks him once, amused.

"About what, exactly?" He scoffs, a half-tone more disdainful than strictly necessary. "You are more attracted to your collection of hippie-styled purses than you are to _Mutt_."

Bonnie shakes her head, her smile reshaping into a sassy smirk "So why are you always pouting when he comes up in conversation? "

"I don't pout"- Damon scowls, the very picture of boy-ish indignation- "but I know how male teenagers work. Right now you may feel sorry for him, but trust me, the line between him crying on your shoulder and him fantasizing about you putting out for his benefit is thin."

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Bonnie looks more thoroughly entertained than never before."So, in short, you _are_ jealous."

"No, I am _not_ "- he waves a finger under her nose, like she is simply too young and silly to understand what he is truly explaining to her- "I just don't like when other people think they can borrow my stuff."

Out of reflex, the witch's fist dives to hit his collarbone- he grabs her wrist in mid-air and lifts it to his lips so he can trail lingering kisses from the sensitive inside of her wrist to her knuckles.

"I'm not 'stuff'." She protests, although she is biting the inside of her cheek trying not to grin. Or moan.

"Well"- he breathes on her mouth, right before tonguing it- "you're mine anyway."


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood and blurring boundaries, plus an inevitable realization catches up to two very stubborn people. Finally.

**XVIII**

They like to pull at each other's strings until their defenses crack to splinters and the animal raging inside their heads is finally free. It's not often that they are soft with each other, but sometimes it happens.

Her hands clutch at his hips, grinding her pelvis into his as she slides her palm under the silk of his shirt, patient fingers tracing the contours of his abdomen and shoulders . In response, his eyelids sag close in delight because he loves her newly discovered assertiveness, although he has never been the one to literally melt under another's touch . An impatient growl reverberates from his locked lips to her soft throat when she tries to break away to dispose properly of his shirt.

"God, I want you," she purrs into his ear while he hoists her up, pressing himself between her quivering thighs and progressively increasing the pressure as the craving for the sensation of her body wrapped snugly around his grows urgent.

Kissing her deeply, Damon twists his fingers into her raven locks and tries to place the alien feeling of lightness spreading through his veins at her words. It's a disorienting sort of exhilaration he can't remember ever experiencing-before or after his turning- , terrifying in its utter unfamiliarity despite its disarming pleasantness.

It confuses him so much that he almost loses his balance and trips on her bed. "Sweet move, Salvatore" Bonnie giggles, falling under him. Usually Damon is not fond of women who laugh at his expense, but this time the light, inebriating feeling just intensifies.

He shakes his head to dispel it, crawling over her half-naked body and trying to focus on the exciting sight of all that bare flesh on display. It doesn't work.

He drags his sharpening fangs over the curve of her breast and her scent overwhelms him, her breathy sigh stirs something akin to awe within his chest.

 _This is not normal_ – the vampire reasons to himself, frowning. Undulating underneath him, Bonnie looks flawless, pulsating with life and heat, pure like a fallen angel even while she arches into him with a helpless whimper , wordlessly begging for it. She is warm and vulnerable and all the more distant for it, so distant that he can sense the most feral, primitive side of him yearning to bridge the gap.

He pulls back, smirking at her disappointed gasp, and then, with mercurial speed, plunges roughly inside her.

Rashly, her fingernails dig in his shoulder-blades as she cries out at the unexpected sensation of fullness: it should satisfy him but the hunger keeps raging on, thundering in his ears. This, too, is completely unprecedented but he can't think, can't do anything but sink his teeth into his wrist until he feels his own blood filling his mouth.

It's not until he forces his wound against her lips, disclosed in a moan, that things start making sense again. She fights it at first, her hips still bucking against his despite her struggle to resist, but then the taste of his blood starts to exercise its dark appeal and she gives in.

_She gives in, and Damon has never felt less dead._

The pressure of her warm mouth suckling on his wrist, her tongue eagerly swiping against his cooler skin, the needful squeezing of her teeth on his flesh: everything makes for the single most satisfying experience of his life.

Bonnie wakes up, that night, with his arm around her chest, keeping her protectively tucked against him, his cheek flat against her shoulder, her loins sore, her mind throbbing with memories not hers.

She sees _him_ as a little boy, sneaking in to see his mother after she had just given birth to Stefan just to find her empty-eyed and unresponsive to his tugging little hands. She feels loving Stefan despite that. She sees his father, commanding and severe, always making him feel less than he was, less than Stefan was, less than anyone could ever be. She feels his need for freedom and passion, his restlessness and dissatisfaction with his life. She senses him finding a purpose in Katherine, swallowing the frustration of never being quite enough for her, the humiliating suspicion that she preferred Stefan, his adoration of Katherine's ruthlessness and power. His desire to deserve her, to be just like her because, to him, she was the very image of perfection.

For the first time, Bonnie feels like she truly, entirely knows what intimacy truly means. She should be repulsed, knowing how many horrible acts Damon has committed only because he wanted to. She should be disgusted that he could love so desperately someone so evil, both willingly and guiltlessly.

She should be angry that he fed his blood to her for no plausible reason or ashamed that she has enjoyed it so easily.

She feels nothing but sated and content. Maybe even…at peace, for lack of any better definitions. This is the only place she wants to be, and she is glad she could share this with him.

She tries to memorize every sensation, to entrap this one perfect moment inside the very depths of herself so it can last forever.

The funny part? She is not even certain what has made this night so precious to her. There was something subtly different in Damon tonight, something special that has made her feel particularly treasured. Nearly beloved.

 _I'm in love with him._ – it surprises Bonnie how easily she surrenders to that simple realization, considering how long and how hard she has been fighting it. Yet, once the thought has popped into her head, there's no denying it.

It's not precisely a happy revelation because she has no idea whether he might feel the same toward her. She is not exactly his type.

But she doesn't despise herself for it either. Perhaps loving someone is not about approving their history or character, but just about finding a person you can lay with like this, feeling like any miracle is possible.

**XIX**

In the end, their little brigade manages to locate Klaus' lair and decides to break in. By daylight hours, of course. Bonnie takes care of tearing down the magical barriers keeping the abandoned warehouse hidden from strangers' gazes and sheltered from sunlight.

Then all hell breaks loose as Alaric, Damon, Stefan, and Tyler get in the building. Elena stays by Bonnie's side, guarding her now exhausted friend from any unexpected threats, until the witch feels strong enough to stand again, strong enough to insist that they should follow their friends inside.

Incredibly, a few hours after, the nightmare is over. Klaus and his cohorts are nothing but a memory blurred from fatigue and Bonnie is with Stefan, Elena, Damon, Tyler, and an overly worried Caroline at Mystic Grill.

Bonnie grins as Tyler puts his arms around Caroline's waist, drawing her struggling, gibbering self in his lap with a sly smirk on his lips. She can't help feeling so very happy for Caroline, who has finally found a guy who cares for her as much as she does for him. Even if their relationship started on the wrong foot and they bicker most of the time.

Strangely, this makes the young witch miss Damon's presence beside her, although they are usually careful to never act too amicable in public. Her eyes, on instinct, seek him out only to find him standing behind the sitting Stefan and Elena, his hands on their shoulders, smirking impishly and whispering in Elena's ear something that makes Stefan cringe.

 _Always playing the three musketeers_ – Bonnie considers, pushing back a spike of pained sadness that cuts her unexpectedly from inside.

The morning after, when Stefan knocks on her door to tell her that Damon has left Mystic Falls on his classy sports car after a few shocking, caustic words of goodbye to his brother and _Elena_ , Bonnie feels like screaming her lungs out, setting the whole town on fire, cursing her stupidity until her hair turns grey and lank. But she is not truly surprised, she realizes right away.

She is angry and hurt and in serious need of spreading some violence around, but she is not surprised.

Because they had both more or less taken for granted that their almost-relationship was set on a precise expiration date: Klaus' downfall.

And now that Klaus is done in, of course that Damon would leave her without one fucking word of warning. Like she means nothing, or perhaps like she means too much, but Bonnie doesn't care to tell the difference because it infuriates her beyond any chance of forgiveness.

"Look," Stefan tries to comfort her, his voice calmer and more soothing than usual, "even my brother is not _that_ stupid. He adores dramatic displays. If he had not really cared about you, he would have come by, at least for a last…you know. "

Bonnie' s lips twitch in a bitter flavored smile, because it's too easy to picture Damon dropping by for a goodbye fuck, cocky and unapologetic as ever. What ever possessed her to fall for such an asshole?

"He'll come back," Stefan insists with too serious, too gentle eyes that seem to look disturbingly through her aloof façade to reach her aching, stupid heart, "I know him. He may be slow on the uptake, but he will get it right at last."

Bonnie appreciates the solidarity but still shakes her head, a cold fury hardening her features.

"I don't know if I want that he returns."

Because, honestly, what chances do they have? His values and hers don't match. Their lifestyles don't match.

They may have a terrific sexual chemistry, but Damon doesn't love her. He can't love her. He doesn't even want to.

And he hurts her so damn easily.

"Just promise me you won't ever tell Elena anything about this."

"Bonnie, you don't need to be ashamed."

She smoothes imaginary wrinkles off from her skirt, refusing to meet the younger Salvatore's gaze.

"I'm not, but I think I might hate her if she knew anything of this mess."

She has never envied Elena Gilbert over anything, and she won't begin today. But being pitied from 'the unofficial other woman'? It's not a burden she would be able to stand.

**XX**

At first, Damon tries to keep himself satisfied with women who are nothing like her. Redheads, blondes, chestnut-haired beauties like Elena and Katherine.

He doesn't compel any of them until after he gets to the biting part, because _her_ voice is still in his head, complaining that compelling someone to have sex with you is no less than a form of rape. Annoying Little Witch, so far away and still spoiling his fun.

Two weeks of wandering all across the state and his mind is no less full of Bonnie than it was when he left her. He is haunted by sensory impressions of her: he lays down on a bed and the way her body curled against his will catch up to him; he will close his eyes while fucking someone else and will miss the contrast between her coffee complexion and his crisp white Egyptian cotton sheets.

He notices constantly that his stuff no longer smells like her and the absence of adequate verbal sparring gets on his nerves more and more every day.

It's maddening. He doesn't _need_ Bonnie Bennett to make immortality entertaining. That's what he already has Stefan for.

Yet, he can't hide that he misses being around her at least as much he misses being inside her. Just being around her used to make him feel so…settled him with himself, like everything was okay and perfect and brand new. Like nothing was amiss. And experiencing her touch, her voice stuttering his name as she came for him ,the trust in her gaze as she confided her thoughts to him… all of it had felt like receiving some sort of undeserved forgiveness.

How had he never noticed any of this until she was gone?

It infuriates Damon, knowing he let someone have this level of power over him _again_. Has he not learnt his lesson with Katherine?

He blames it all on Bonnie, obviously. She just looked too naïve, too un-twisted to ever have the slimmest chance to affect him this profoundly .

So he finds a girl who looks enough like her-same exact complexion, full lips, big doe eyes and raven hair- compels her to believe she's someone else, to behave like someone else.

He convinces himself that a quick fix is all he needs to break the habit, that tainting the memory of _her_ with some kind of abuse will make her less significant.

But it's difficult to preserve the mood, because the scent is all wrong, the taste of blood and skin dull. He feels dirty just touching the look-alike and he angrily wonders how Stefan could even stand it.

He can't even bear the way the other girl is touching him without shaking with frustration.

' _You are repulsive'_ Bonnie' s phantom voice taunts from the back of his mind when he commands his victim to get on her knees.

 _So? -_ He snaps back inwardly, a self-deprecating imitation of a smirk settling on his lips.

' _You are better than this.'_

_No, I am not._

' _You might be.'_

_I don't want to._

Nonetheless, he stops the small hands fumbling with his zipper and breathes out in bitter, humiliating defeat.

After that particularly shaming episode, he decides to get spectacularly trashed.

Getting drunk is not easy for a vampire, but Damon Salvatore is nothing if not persistent. It takes emptying 17 bottles of vodka in less than 2 hours but his head is finally a very quiet, clean place.

He can finally rest.

The morning after, he awakens on the floor of a cheap motel room with no idea of how he got there. There are no corpses around and he doesn't know if he should be relieved or not. He has never treated himself so poorly.

 _I've became Stefan_ \- he realizes with a horrified groan- _only a more idiotic- if better looking- version._

Because Stefan had at least the sense to keep Elena, masochistic edge aside, and where's Bonnie now?

Probably in full-rebound mode and allowing Mutt to plaster his grubby, unworthy hands all over her.

The mental image alone sends a wave of bloodlust thundering through his skull and it hurts so much that his eyes actually water. Damn hangover.

He craves tearing someone apart, but what would that solve?

What he really needs is feeling Bonnie underneath him again. Burrowing his face in her long hair. Kissing her. Knowing she is glad to have him back.

 _I want her. I want her forever._ \- He admits to himself and it still doesn't feel like a complete truth.

It's more than wanting or caring. He is in love with her.

He might still walk away from it, because living without love is a choice like any other.

But he doesn't want to.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams, heated reunions and improvised confessions.

 

**XXI**

_She CAN'T believe Caroline had the gall to buy this for her, but Bonnie still turns the pages and giggles, a fond smile on her face as she notices some names are actually underlined and have notes beside them like 'too macho-man sounding?', 'too pompous?', 'too original?' or worse 'too canine?'_

_No one does 'fussing' like Caroline Forbes. Thank God._

" _A baby names book? Now that's something that should never find its way into a respectable vampire household. "_

_She raises her gaze to meet two startlingly blue eyes and her smile becomes playful "I'll be the godmother. Apparently part of my duties is helping the mother-to-be to pick suitable names for twins."_

_Damon snorts and swiftly steals the incriminating book out of her hands. "Weirdos like Caroline Forbes and Tyler Lockwood should be forbidden from procreating separately, let alone together. It's all bad blood. There should be a law against it. "_

" _You are a horrible person." She complains without too much effort, distracted from the fresh blood she can smell so well at this distance. It makes sense, because she has been noticing how his eyes are at their most vibrant, dark blue when he has just fed, while hers seem to pale from hazel-green to clear green when she is hungry. It's just one among the many things they're polar opposites in, yet it's undeniable that they are a flawless fit for each other._

_He's warmer too, radiating a stolen heat that just makes her canines to protrude against her tongue and her body ache for skin to skin contact. Instinct bides her to feel slightly resentful and neglected, regardless of their decision of never hunting together unless he's already sated. It's a long road to go before she can control her appetites enough to handle it without his supervision and leave her prey relatively unharmed._

_Damon flashes a boisterous smirk like he knows every tainted thought running through her mind, but chooses to plow down beside her, ignoring her and flipping through the pages with sarcastic disapproval all over his features._

" _Bonnie," he reads out loud, his tone exaggeratedly amiable, "it's of Scottish origin and its meaning is 'beautiful, attractive, pretty' and also diminutive of the French word 'bonne', meaning 'good'. Commonly used as a fond nickname. The old nursery rhyme claims that "the child who is born on the Sabbath Day/is bonny and blithe and good and gay", which makes this an appropriate name for a Sunday's child."_

_Leaning toward her conspiratorially until his shoulder hits hers, her mate brushes his lips against her jaw and keeps humoring her with a slightly darker tone: "Well,_ _**beautiful, attractive** _ _and_ _**good** _ _. It sounds like a promising package. What are you doing with a rotten, devious_ _**devil** _ _like myself? "_

_Sensing the cynic edge to those too light words, Bonnie flips him down to the mattress, straddling him with a sun-bright smile and rolling her eyes in a deliberate show of false annoyance._

" _Your name doesn't translate as 'devil', you ignorant creep. It's actually from the Greek root for 'spirit'."_

_Damon 's eyebrows arch mockingly "Aww, you researched our names to check if they fit? That's so sweet!"_

_For some twisted reason – it's like drug tolerance, she decides- his being so difficult is incredibly charming right now._

_So she shuts his teasing up with a kiss._

Bonnie comes awake with a shudder of delight, but as soon her eyes flutter open, her lips part in a sigh of defeat.

She thought the numbness was bad that first week after he left, but this…this is worse. The dreaming of lifetimes with him, as a mortal and as a vampire, knowing he will hold her again someday. She has been trying so hard to hate him, to separate herself from her most tender feelings toward him. It's impossible when visions keep reminding her what she's missing and what she might have, if only she will take him back, once he returns to her. Whenever this may be.

She doesn't want to wait around for the stubborn likes of Damon Salvatore. He doesn't deserve it. He broke her before she could fully realize he was capable of it.

He…made her better, she will own to it some days. He has shaped her from a little girl to a woman, taught her the language of passion, shown to her those elusive shades of grey between black and white.

That's why she doesn't regret anything, but it hardly matters when the world around her feels like it has lost all the colors.

Every day she fights off the compulsion to just lie in her bed and sleep the hours away. She gets up and goes through the motions of living until she can get back to sleep.

Fortunately the school year is over and Stefan took Elena away for a short vacation, so she is free to hang around Matt and just pretend she is feeling something, anything. Matt won't question her and they will talk about meaningless matters like they have no pressing future plans to decide on.

Bonnie has no energies to waste on college projects or to draw prospective on what her life might become.

It's Damon's fault if she feels so distant from everything, and she doesn't want to be angry or hopeful . She straight-out refuses to feel content at the idea of his return.

He's been a prick to her and the concept of depending so much on someone so fickle, selfish and plainly destructive is frankly terrifying. So, no she won't accept how much exactly she wanted to be loved by him. She won't wonder if those dreams are prophetic in nature or just her mind's way to grieve for him, to prove to herself that she could do better than Katherine or Elena.

Because in those dreams, he is happy and she is the sole recipient of his romantic affections.

Bonnie rejects all hope because she wouldn't be able to bear another disappointment.

**XXII**

When Damon gets back, Bonnie can sense a subtle shift in the very atmosphere : it happens suddenly, but without any fanfare. She just blinks once upon a common May morning and knows this is the day they will be breathing the same air again. She might focus, reach out with her mind and learn where he is and what he's doing- it's a temptation she pulls back from harshly, in the space of a few seconds.

Obviously, this doesn't improve her predicament much.

At their first meeting her fingers are desperately fumbling to get her key in her lock while her arms are holding her full grocery bags to her chest. Suddenly, pale hands reach out from behind to lift the bags out of her hold.

She doesn't need to turn to recognize who the bastard is.

Bonnie doesn't give him the satisfaction to see her shaken, forces her hyper-aware body to freeze in place and her hitching breath to even out. She doesn't even lift her eyes from the lock.

"What do you want?" she sounds pissed off, cold but collected. It's a strange juxtaposition to how she truly feels. Like she's crumbling inside, piece by piece, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

"An extensive tour of your bedroom?" his voice is husky, mischievous, thick with confidence. It's a tone she used to be used to. Now it kills her at least as much it enrages her.

Bonnie inhales deeply, commands herself not to cry. "I think you signed off the privilege when you decided I didn't deserve a goodbye."

She turns around just to spit the last few words in his face. If she expected anger would grant her a shred of genuine emotion from Damon, she was wrong. He remains handsome and so damn sure of himself, no regret or guilt flashing behind those darkening cerulean eyes.

He drops her bags down to allow his arms to entrap her against the door. "Don't be like that, Bon-Bon. You got me back. Isn't that all what matters?"

"Just go away" the witch hisses, pushing hard against his chest. Damon doesn't budge.

"No."

"Why the hell not?" she all but snarls, her nails digging in his flesh punishingly, seeking instinctively to hurt him the only way she can.

"Why, she asks…" Damon drawls, rolling his eyes upward, playing pretend to be annoyed at her stubborn obliviousness. Then, abruptly, his body fluidly draws back an inch from hers and his expression grows almost hesitant before shifting back to boisterous:

"Because you _love_ me."

He says it so smoothly that it comes across as unbearably cruel. She slaps him as hard she can for daring to throw the ugly truth in her face.

"I don't even _like_ you!" Bonnie defends herself, but her tone is too sharp, too loud. She can't even convince herself.

"Liar" Damon mutters too close to her ear, becoming more serious as he gives way to a quite annoyed rant:

"I didn't want be in this position again. To change everything around to make someone else happy, fuckingly proud of being with me? It hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. You and me were supposed to be fun: plain, simple and transitory. I didn't want to get close and personal with you. I didn't want you to matter to me. But _you_ fucked all my plans up, so you will just have to live with it, and if you don't love me already, I'll make you. "

Her response is narrowing her furious green eyes at him and slap him, again. It's an even stronger slap than her first.

"That's the least romantic or sensitive apology I've ever heard!"

"It wasn't supposed to be an apology! " Damon frowns, indignant.

"What the fuck it was then? " she hisses, less than pleased.

"Me telling you we can have a relationship, you self-righteous little…" the vampire trails off, searching his mind for any appropriate insult and finding nothing fitting, much to his disbelief "…witch."

Visibly tempted to slap him again, but knowing it would accomplish nothing except causing more pain to her stinging palm, Bonnie raises her hands in the air and snaps an obviously exasperated "Gee, thank you!"

Obvious or not, this is when he kisses her. It's a firm, demanding kiss that doesn't allow her to stay unresponsive, but the arm that surrounds her waist, pulling her hips swiftly against his, is nothing but careful and gentle.

The moment is magical and not in a way that has anything to do with witchcraft. Damon is not touching her in any inappropriate manner: for once, he seems content enough with just kissing her mouth and keeping her as close possible. That detail alone convinces her of his intentions somehow. She feels like she is melting and flying at once, and he is her one anchor. She has never felt so good before and wishes this could last forever.

' _I missed you'_ his mental voice flits across the surface of her thoughts.

' _I missed you too.'_ Bonnie replies in kind, still kissing him.

' _I'll give you anything you might ever want. Forever.'_ The vampire promises heatedly, a touch of desperation tingeing the words as he kisses harder, deeper.

For a moment Bonnie falters because she knows this is what Love means to Damon: offering everything he has and waiting to see the sacrifice adequately compensated, to bend backwards only so he will have the person he wants staying around.

It's a big, scary responsibility, being loved like this.

' _As long as you don't leave me again and you don't go on any killing sprees, I have everything I need. '_

She wraps her arms around his neck knowing she might regret this admission. Maybe even tomorrow, or two hours from now. Rome wasn't built in a day and Damon can easily drive her insane, when he so elects.

But to hell with it.

' _Deal.'_

**XXIII**

It's not until they make love again, with her spread and bare under him, that Bonnie actually hears THE words.

His lips are on her stomach, kissing circles around her bellybutton and his mind delves again inside hers: _'Mine. So beautiful…so perfect. Mine. Love…love you.'_

His thoughts are too scattered and fragmented, and it is unintentional, but she treasures it all the same. Perhaps even more.

His nose brushes the underside of her breast and Damon inhales the scent of her skin like it's everything- food, sex, god- to him.

"Damon, I love you." Her mouth is confessing before she is ready to say the words. It's too soon- she bites her bottom lip, panic fluttering in between her heartbeats- although it feels like it's a long time overdue. She is not the only one to be shocked: every one of Damon's muscles trembles as he gets nearly immobile, and then he's literally springing on top of her, the despair in his eyes so naked and raw that it takes her breath away. There's such desolation behind that gaze, like a hunger that can never be completely sated. There are years of obsession and resentment draining his capacity for true, straight-forward emotion. There's a crippling solitude, a violent and devastating need for contact, frustrated for way too long.

"Yes" he growls, taking her face between his hands and smoothing locks of her hair away. "Yes."

It's the closest he can come to telling her what he feels, but it's surprisingly okay. Bonnie discovers she doesn't need him to make it harder on himself. She can just let herself go, here and now, to lose her heart to this moment.

Damon's eyes tell her everything she needs to know. They tell her she is necessary and not allowed to _ever_ leave him.

And that, too, is okay with her.


	14. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each and every end is really nothing but the beginning of another course.

     

 

 

**THE EPILOGUE**

Love as Damon has experienced it is a bittersweet agony, a self-inflicted torture that always promises more than it gives to you. He recognizes, to some extent, that he had left Bonnie to her own devices because he despises the idea of seeing her leaving him first. He couldn't –still can't- predict how he would react or feel if she became the next participant in the 'let's pass Damon over for something better' game, and this worries him.

He's familiar with the need to possess and covet, with the raw hunger of desiring something barely out of his reach. He knows how to be a vampire, how to protect what belongs to him.

Being with Bonnie puzzles him because, even having her all for himself and knowing she freely acknowledges his claim on her, he doesn't feel in control at all.

He expected to feel all-powerful and ready to take over the world, with his little witch in his back pocket, but no: all he feels is refreshed and unusually well-disposed to random strangers. He might be hitting obsessive with his constant craving to be around her _all the time_ , but that's always been a salient trait of his personality, so he doesn't feel strange going along with it.

He is snarkier and more energetic than usual, hornier and hungrier, more eager for new things.

His days lately go like this- he wakes in his bed, with Bonnie draped over him, and they make love. Often they feed from each other while they do, and it's amazing, because it's the one moment he feels like she is nearly close enough. Her essence runs underneath his skin and he knows she can feel him the same way. It never lasts long enough, but he is confident that, in time, he will be able to convince Bonnie to embrace vampirism.

He walks with her in the woods in the morning, whether she is set on harvesting herbs for her potions or just on having a long nature stroll. He'll watch her while she tries connecting with nature spirits, or meditating among trees, and he'll study the subtle changes in her, will breathe in her power with a wary arousal.

They don't hold hands, but their hands are always all over each other, in public or private. The lust is like a fever they can't sweat out, it doesn't matter how hard they try.

They talk more than they did _before_ , he'll admit it. All because Bonnie has no shame anymore, about questioning all random episodes of his life she sees while his blood is humming inside her. He loves talking about himself, so why shouldn't he be giving her all the answers she wants?

He's not even forced to quiz her back for fairness' sake, because Bonnie volunteers information candidly, more adamant than he is about evening the scale.

That's one more thing about her he likes, the willingness to give out as much she takes. He knows from experience that, when you have considerable power, it's easier to take advantage of those you love than of random strangers. It's easier being fair to the ones who lack the ability to hurt you.

But not for Bonnie, and he respects her more for the strength it takes.

She is a fascinating work of art and the closer he looks, the more layers he finds. Damon wants to unwrap them all, to discover what hides underneath, but there's never enough time. So he worries incessantly, whenever he is not with her, that something can happen and take her away before he can make her indestructible, immortal.

Waiting until she is ready is troubling, but not when she's close enough to touch. In those moments, he relaxes and all concerns feel distant, insubstantial.

He's grateful that, for once, Stefan is so keen on living the 'human experience' backpacking across Canada with his girlfriend (although, he can't avoid shaking his head at their choice of destination. Canada? _Why, Stefan, why?_ ).

It gives him more chances to keep his witch naked, now that her father is around more often, spreading college brochures on every horizontal surface available.

"I don't like how your father is pressuring you."

Because the only one allowed to put any sort of pressure on her, at this point, should be _him_.

Damon has Bonnie on her stomach, languidly stretched underneath him and over his bedspread. He has swept her hair away from her nape, so he could properly kiss the path to her spine.

"It seriously worries me that you're thinking of my father _now_." She giggles and it's a smoky, seductive sound that stirs in him so many appetites at once.

Yet, he doesn't give in. "He cock-blocks me with all his pep-talk."

Bonnie rolls her eyes, amused. "You are not the one who has to listen to it."

"No, but I'm the one who has to put up with your frowning face after _you_ listen to it."

A pillow is aimed to his head for that line, but it was worth it, and he avoids it easily.

"I can stalk you anywhere"- he adds, playing it like a joke because he has never truly learnt how to approach seriously this kind of matter- "but why would you go, if it gets you so antsy?"

With a deep sigh, Bonnie rolls on her back, disentangling reluctantly from him. "Because I'm smart, and smart people further their education in order to be successful. "

"It sounds like a chore."

"Please, you are always complaining that our scholastic system teaches nothing to no one anymore and how much better it was when you were alive. Why are you throwing a bitch-fit over this?"

At first, Damon snickers at her use of the 'bitch-fit' word, then it dawns on him that she is right, and his expression grows pensive.

Why does the idea of Bonnie going to college displease him so much? He has nothing to lose, anywhere she choose to go.

College is fun. There are parties, alcohol, sororities. He _loves_ college life.

"You are always looking uninterested and avoiding talk about that sort of stuff. _You_ don't want to go. "

He realizes, and it quite surprises him that he is able to be so affected by her concerns, especially when they are that trivial.

"It's not that I don't want to go"- Bonnie interrupts him, in a rush- "I want to. Just…I've always thought I would have definite projects when it was the time to go, and now it's here and I've nothing but this sense of…being slowly smothered and aggravated."

"Ah."

"Ah? That's all you have to say?"

"You wouldn't like to hear what I _really_ have to say."

"Try me." She challenges, arms crossed before her chest as she sits up, and because Damon can never resist her when she looks so righteous and self-important, he clears his throat and goes with brutal honesty.

"You can pretend with yourself all you want, but you know you are not cut out for anything remotely resembling suburban life. You need more than the promise of a good monthly check and a large house to be satisfied with yourself. You live for the rush, the edge. The magic, if you want to call it that. Normality kills you from within. Just like me."

She looks back him to him with a strange intensity before answering, "Perhaps, but you are dead, and I'm not."

"That is easily remedied." He smirks, hopeful, just to have her shake her head reproachfully at him.

"Don't even think about it."

Bonnie looks away from his suddenly blank features, but leans into his hands as his fingers play with locks of her hair.

"You should be mine forever." He reminds her, his tone in between stern and suggestive. It brings a smile to her lips because she can just see it, remember the dreams she has never talked to him about, the secret future they will build together.

"Someday,"- she promises, meeting his gaze once more- "eventually. But not tomorrow or next week or month or-"

"I get the gist"

"Okay" she smiles at his bored timbre and moves in to kiss him, surprised when he grips her chin gently and holds her back.

Damon looks serious again, and this, in her books, is rarely a good omen.

"There 's one more option, you know. I might just steal you away from this hell-hole. You should just come away with me" He breaths on her lips, seductive enough to daze her senses, and she misses those days when such a transparent try to manipulate her would gain him nothing but a sound slap. It's harder to deny him, when she understands it's not a game to him.

"What do you mean?"

He cups her face and caresses it softly, staring straight into her eyes.

"There's a whole world outside of here that you never imagined. I can hand it to you, I can show you everything. You think about shamans in Africa, the Guild of Dark Arts in Russia, the magical traditions of Ireland. Stonehenge. All their secrets are just there, waiting for you, waiting to make your power flourish. All you need to do is take a sabbatical, give me one year, allow me to spirit you away."

Bonnie pries gently out of his touch, too shocked to take his proposition seriously.

"You can't say things like that on a whim. "

He grips her wrists, tilts her chin to force her gaze back on him. "I _want_ it."

"Well, that fixes everything"- the witch snaps, sarcastic- "never mind that a week ago you could barely tell me how you felt. "

"Talking is cheap." Damon shrugs off her concerns, impatience and displeasure chasing each other briefly across his attractive visage.

Bonnie doesn't get to reply properly because, in a matter of seconds, she finds herself pinned under a dead weight. Literally speaking. Half of her admires his determined conviction to be able to seduce anyone into anything. The other half thinks her boyfriend's an idiot.

"Quit over-analyzing" -the bastard singsongs, taunting- "Put aside the smart thing to do. Close your eyes and tell me you aren't tempted. "

"You are a bully."

"I'm right. "

"I hate you when you get like this." She ignores him, trying energetically to squirm out of his arms, even while she knows it's an impossible feat. As a matter of fact, it's just getting him more _excited._

"Yes. Because you know I'm right."

"What you are"-she confesses, ceasing her recalcitrant movements –"is fickle and impulsive."

"Except when I am not." Damon exploits the chance to nip at her jaw, run his tongue on her throat "I look forward to taking care of you, Bonnie."

And inside his head, the decision is already made and cemented, so any objection she can bring up now, the stubborn leech will just take as a challenge.

_Meet Damon Salvatore, the vampire steamroller._

In a sane world, she would be annoyed. Aggravated. Perhaps furious. Bonnie Bennett's world has stopped being sane a long time ago. No complaints.

"If you say so-" she hums against his grinning mouth, kissing him.

It's not the most conventional manner to agree to _both_ move in and travel around the world with a psycho, but he gets her.

He gets her: between them, it's always been simple and complicated as that.


End file.
